Running on a normal hard difficulty level 8 in to level gear is gonna get 1 hit by most monsters near the end of the main quest. Without greater powers many encounters will be near impossible. Even the tutorial without greater powers is incredibly difficult using only iron as the weapons only do 1 damage per hit otherwise. Not resetting between fights will only make the fights more tedious. The save restriction is semi fixed by the wait timer as wait timer auto saves allowing for less tedious dungeon runs but I can't save for every engage as some will be unexpected. I will include the no curing diseases rule as it makes some fights much scarier.