I've actually played both games before (SWTOR and KOTOR 1 & 2) and I definitely agree, those Rakghouls are a nightmare.

The first time I played through this i had no idea what i was doing and those rakghouls simply destroyed my party, I probably missed on a lot of experience points running away from them. Ever since that playthrough I actually looked up how to make a character that won't (probably) die as fast as my first one did.

But despite my character sucking completely at everything in my first playthrough i still managed to finish the game and it quickly became one of my favorites, it's the reason why i played SWTOR in the first place.