It is a change from previous games, but I don't think it's completely unwelcome. Before, you'd look at what you're fighting. Is it an Ogre? Probably not the wisest creature around, so Command should work on it... Is it a priest? Oh... kind of hard to tell, really. Some of them wear heavy armor, others don't. What about those Bhaalists? Are they Fighters or Paladins? Sometimes it's obvious that the robe-wearing drow is a cleric to someone with basic knowledge of religion because they wield a scourge with snakeheads, but the game isn't really built like ethat right now in the same way the old D&D games were. Appearance isn't always indicative of resistences and such, and while that sounds cool and WAS cool in D:OS2, it's very punishing with the 5e ruleset - you're not just wasting a turn, you're wasting one of your few spell slots. Lock + Bard + martial + druid is already such a stupidly strong combo because of short rests, and it might feel a lot more mandatory if wasting spells becomes a thing every encounter.
I'm not completely opposed to your idea for Tactician, mind you. But I wonder if it's not already a bit too late - at this point, most people have played the game at least once. They 'member previous encounters
Still, the older games didn't even show AoE ranges for spells like Fireball, you had to learn them. That was cool, but... times have changed. I think we who would appreciate such things are in a minority. I'd be happy to have all this on Tactician only (maybe even a gameplay setting that can be toggled on or off in Options, like Pillars of Eternity did).
