I guess Sage is all INT and no WIS, Gideon with his balanced build was probably the highest WIS character in the group so now they are missing him since they all have minmax'ed combat builds and can't do anything besides taking the fight path every encounter. Maybe this situation could be solved with a WIS check instead of a fight but the Hero (probably the second highest WIS after Gideon) failed the check (maybe the urge to fight from her hero "blessing" has a WIS penalty) and they got to fight.
This is a great manga, plot and characters seem solid, nice world building and nice art.