The-Magic-Sword
Small Ball Archmage
The game really rewards tactics and preperation, make no mistake that it is harder than 5e, so success isn't a foregone conclusion. Choices like whether the party is debuffing, or has a deficated healer, or if someone is boosting their primary stat do matter, or if they ever use consumables in the moments between two back to back combats.I don't know. Maybe my players were just bad? We would regularly have shattered shields, characters low on HP, and more after even moderate encounters. To throw anything against them in that condition would be a death sentence.
Its pretty easy to make the encounters eadier if your players are struggling, or they can improve themselves-- since improvement in a game like this is knowledge based, its inherently accessible (as opposed to something physical) for anyone.