This came up in another thread and I thought we could discuss it a little more deeply.
The core question is: do your intelligent humanoid opponents -- we'll use orcs, since that was the inciting instance -- know that they may face fireball slinging opponents, and therefore adjust their tactics so as not to all get caught in one so long as the terrain and situation allow it?
More broadly, in your games, do you have intelligent enemies know about, plan for and counter spell casters on the battlefield? Do you pick and choose which kind of enemies are likely to do so based on their stats? Alignment? Who is leading them? How "special" are the PCs from a demographic standpoint, and does that impact enemy tactics? IS the world you run the game in magical enough that everyday soldiers are trained to avoid area of effects (like we train soldiers to not bunch up to reduce casualties from grenades)?
The core question is: do your intelligent humanoid opponents -- we'll use orcs, since that was the inciting instance -- know that they may face fireball slinging opponents, and therefore adjust their tactics so as not to all get caught in one so long as the terrain and situation allow it?
More broadly, in your games, do you have intelligent enemies know about, plan for and counter spell casters on the battlefield? Do you pick and choose which kind of enemies are likely to do so based on their stats? Alignment? Who is leading them? How "special" are the PCs from a demographic standpoint, and does that impact enemy tactics? IS the world you run the game in magical enough that everyday soldiers are trained to avoid area of effects (like we train soldiers to not bunch up to reduce casualties from grenades)?