Yeah, balance was tricky for this. I have next to no experience at balancing encounters like this, I got so used to playing it that I can't reliably tell the difficulty, and I just had very little time. As for the acolyte, the fireball move is best countered by using the dagger, as you can inflict a few 10 damage hits (the fireball has no shield and a relatively long cast time) before he can launch it off.