If a pretender design is much more vulnerable; then perhaps as a player you need to compensate for that in some fashion. I don't believe that Illwinter intended for *Every* possible type of pretender to be equal in terms of survivability. Otherwise they are trying to combat player stupidity.

"Players use their Frost Father to attack provinces solo, with no picks in any sphere or spells researched; there has to be a way we can implement a way for them to do this otherwise it might hurt the pretender design."