Defense for Bruma. I kept reloading the game and failing over and over.

I'm currently level 27, which means tons of xivilai and dremora markynaz coming out.

Bringing the difficulty slider all the way to the left helps, but not much. It allows me to cut down the enemies quickly, but those two still die before I can help.

I try and take down the enemies they're fighting, but still the same outcome. They can't take much.

There was also this idea of bringing Sir Thedret with me to improve the odds, but chances are he'll die instead.

Pickpocketing anything isn't an option. My character is a knight.

Yes, the MQ at higher levels is problematical when your goal is to keep the game supplied followers alive.

The trick with Bruma is to get into the gate as quickly as possible, as that should stop the friendly NPC Deaths. I have seen one get killed this way (although he could have gotten the death hit just before I entered the gate. I don't know if it actually stops the deaths, but I do remember not losing anyone this way in previous plays. I could have just been lucky.

You might also try setting your character level down just for the battle, and then putting it back again after. I have no idea what all this would so to your character's stats, so make a forked save first, if you want to try this. It might not even change the level of the enemy NPCs. I have never tried this, so I have no idea if it would work.

You may be able to use the console to set the health of these guys up to say 1000 or 10000 and that might keep them alive long enough.

The problem is that they die before the third lesser gate is open.

Setting his level down? How do you do that? In any case, I'm on the PS3.

I did say I try to take down whatever they're fighting, but maybe it's when I rush to kill the first daedra that spawn from each gate that they die. It could be best to stick with them and let the enemies come.

I've had success with a mage, by creating an area-of-effect Command Creature spell, and casting it into the groups of daedra as they emerge from the gates. It doesn't work on humanoids, so it doesn't do anything to the Dremoras, but it will work on their summons, and on all the lesser daedra. Get them to fighting among themselves.

Bluntly, I'd say that the problem isn't that you can't keep them alive, but that you keep restarting the game trying to get one specific outcome. The solution isn't to put together some way to metagame your way to the desired conclusion, but to just let the story unfold as it will.

It's war. People die.