More often than not the mobs just rush right through/between your front line. The majority of them unscathed. For a fighter to draw aggro they must successfully attack a creature and they are limited to one attack per round, you can queue up attacks and hope your fighter connects a swing on each one, but you can miss, and the game likes to insinuate a parry into the queue between each attack which you have to be quick to dismiss.

With the enemy moving around so freely (with so many of them) this can cause your fighters to move as well opening them up to flanking damage and even 'fleeing' damage if they get hit from behind while moving to their next target.

These are very old mechanics problems that many games in the past have attempted solutions for. If you played Drakensang after Dragon Age Origins you would be sorely frustrated. I'm sure the system works well in the pen and paper game, where a DM manages the enemies. It doesn't translate nearly so well when its a computer rushing you.

Mages can still be powerful, its just worth every damn point you can invest in armor spells. Worth every damn point you load your staff skill towards parry and worth every point you can invest in one or two damage spells (or one damage, one debuff). Summons/pets take a LOT of time to become worth a damn in a fight. They have pittance for health until very late in the game.

Yes there are ways to handle the system, I just didn't find it fun. They're very old school mechanics that in my opinion, have been improved on in other games.

Awesome! Thanks for the advice! GamersGate didn't package in a manual. =/

Also, I don't understand a word of German but the voice acting in the German demo was superb.

The English voice acting sounds cartoony, overdone and patronizing.

Fair enough.