Why do their swings auto adjust and hit me from ridiculous range and why do I take so much damage from barely touching a bit of fire ?

I think this part of the game is the third worst designed quest so far, showing just how unreliable blocking is as the first mist related quest showed how horrible the auto-aim was.

My swings seem to randomly miss as well, like something is off with their actual "hit box" compared to what's on screen.

Completed it but wow it was annoying. Luckily the draugr was easier than his ridiculous three helpers that practically can't miss within two sword's lengths.
:[

One thing to note is that some of the spirits you inhabit end up using very different weapons then you may be used to if you've always used your fast Steel Sword as your human killing weapon. I can totally see it throwing people off if they hadn't spent any time using a shovel, halberd, etc earlier in the game.

Pretty sure it wasn't the difference sword that was the problem, the enemies would swivel(in a blatantly unrealistic manner as well) to hit me and their swords struck from a further distance than it looked like should be possible given their length.

Whereas I could be near them and it would appear my sword went straight through them without them reacting or losing health at times.

That was indeed a quite frustrating part. No access to bombs/signs, which is fair enough as you're controlling another character. No rolling either, which was the most annoying part for me. There really should be a way to move without exposing your back to everyone, give me a keybind that enables me to strafe facing the opponent, and walk backwards facing the opponent.

I had no points in Swordsmanship talents, so no counterattacks. I rarely used parry anyway, but since there was nothing much else to do I tried using it too. Well, if you're doing absolutely nothing and no animation is going on, the parry key works. But most of the time I wanted to parry right after my attack, or after getting hit once, and I'd get no reaction for 1-2 seconds. And yes, I know it uses Vigor, I had 5 Vigor and anyway no signs meant I only used it for parrying.

In the end, I cleared the initial 3 enemies by running circles and taking single swings when I had one of the enemies a bit separated so I wouldn't get surrounded. The other group of four with two shield-users was problematic, but I figured out I can pull them one by one, by slowly walking towards them and backing up when the closest one drew his weapon.

I'm playing on hard difficulty, and don't mind reloading at difficult fights, but this one annoyed me by removing most of my tools. The boss itself was a piece of cake after I managed to kill the footmen.

And now there is no autosave between the control of Sethkirk and the Draug.

I feel like no one play tested this game or they all play tested it on easy or normal.

This encounter was the worst/hardest fro me in the whole game.. I defeated the operator guy on hard, but couldn't do this one.. maybe if I spend a few more hours trying- But quite soon I ralized that if I stand close to the fire ring I can lose aggro and regenerate my hp.. kinda exploit, but I found it to be impossible otherwise (I had no points in the swordman tree, that could had been the problem, dunno)