We are starting with session 1 of our new campaign on wednesday, so I can’t actually say if I like them, but here are our optional/homebrew rules for this campaign:

• Bardic inspiration-like DM inspiration: Our DM will give out dice as inspiration, that we can add to d20 rolls, the dice size depending on what we did to deserve it. I struggled to give out the standard inspiration, because I didn’t know when to and then forgot completely. I hope he handles it better than I did and it works as he thinks it does. Luckily, it’s easy to remove.
• Xanathar’s rules for tool sets: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything has a bunch of rules on what you can do with the different tool sets and he gave us an additional tool proficiency at level 1. I’m playing an artificer and I hope we get into situations, where we are actually able to use these tools.
• XP (but not only for combat): We used milestone leveling in the last campaign, and I wonder how this will turn out. I have a feeling our DM wants a more video game rpg feeling progression and I don’t think this is something I want, but I will give him feedback, if it turns out to be a chore.

From the campaign we concluded a few weeks ago:

• Healing Potions as a bonus action (only if you are taking it yourself): It’s okay, we had enough healers and encounters where mostly too easy. (Note: We rotated as DMs between 4 of us. This meant that none of us really got the hang of balancing encounters.)
• One full damage die on a crit: When you roll a crit you roll damage as normal and add the full damage of the die you are rolling (i.e. a 8 on a d8). This was to ensure no crit was lower damage than a normal hit. My opinion is that this is an okay rule, since we didn’t have that many crits, mostly from normal weapon attacks but it doesn’t add much to the experience. On higher levels it felt like the paladin was benefitting too much from this.

Yes, thinning paints and applying a wash produces pretty good results for beginners and from there it’s easy to add other techniques that are within your own capabilities.

This is the way.

(Except those are the worst options for Tabaxi, ranger and Rouges are best)

Because of the stat bonuses? Just take the Monsters of the Multiverse version where you can choose the bonuses freely (everything else is the same).

Personally, I would not try to play dnd “optimally”, it takes away from the creativity and produces either bland or disjointed characters.