One thing that helped me a lot was the special stew that restores health...of course, you have to have the caldron to make it, but once you have it, you can go to the "guide" section and find the recipes for the stews and make the stew to restore health...then you will just have to put them on it once to restore all their health. I too have been frustrated at how hard the game seems. I know some of it are things they are working on...but I worked SO hard to get to the end only to have to wait days and days to try and get all the collectibles with no other "rewards" available. Very frustrating!