I've had the DMG for about a week now and have read it cover to cover a few times.
Over the last few few gaming sessions (my kids and I have played DnD a lot lately ;) ), we've been using some optional rules from the DMG.
At this stage going with the Flanking, and attacking from the rear, both of which give advantage.
We also use climbing on larger opponents.
All good fun and adds more variety to combat.
We're trialing the optional rule for only healing your hit dice + CON bonus on long rests as well. so far it's been fine, but then we've only had a few sessions and no-one has been very close to very few HPs on resting, so it's not been an issue yet.
We DID feel that a 100% heal on a full rest was a bit much, so we like the idea of the limited healing on a full rest.
We didn't bother with Marking, as it felt like just another thing to track in combat.
We use Cleaving, which is pretty awesome for the Fighter.
We are going to use Overrun, shoving tumble and hitting Cover, but not used it yet.
All in all, it's gone really well so far. all the extra tactical options adds more depth and very little complexity to combat and make things more interesting.
One of my son's observations is that for tough monsters, with the added tactical rules, it feels less like knocking down the HPs to zero and more like trying out interesting things in combat.
I appreciate these rules have existed in earlier versions of DnD and PF already, but it's nice to see how it fits in in 5E.
It's really nice to read the 5E take on magic items. As having a good understand how they work in detail is really important to running DnD.
Anyway, what are other people's experiences?
One interesting thing was putting back in flanking.
I ran last night the part of the temple of elemental evil where they attacked the tower with 25 Bandits in it.
The party came up with a good plan, the Druid turning into one of the Ravens and distracting the raven watch birds, allowing the rest of the party to sneak up to the outside of the tower and climb it, coming in from the top.
It did get pretty messy, as the sneaking up wasn't 100% successful, But gratuitous use of fireball and Witch Bolt (twinned), a monk running about beating things up and the druid turning into a bear and tearing into Bandits turned the tide in the end.
At one stage the fighter was surrounded completely and had about 5 bandits around him.
Now he's 5th level and VERY tough, but 5 level 1 bandits, some with Flanking advantage is not to be sneezed at.
He got chopped down to single digit HPs at one stage, but his healing action surge thing saved his ass.
But even then, although his Cleaving helped (using a greatsword with the cleaving optional rule is nasty against low level mobs), he also had archers at the top of the tower shooting down at him when possible, so it looked quite bad for him.
Fortunately, the Druid managed to get to him and rescue him with some healing (who had been hurt pretty badly in bear form and had turned back into a Tiefling by then) . so even though on paper the party outclassed the bandits, getting surrounded is not good even if you are a lot tougher, which is good to see that low level things can still be a challenge if played tactically.
The Monk initially did very well, when he could stay mobile. But he also got surrounded and chopped up pretty badly by Bandits who flanked him and he had less HPs than the Fighter to start with, so it went downhill rapidly for him once they had him trapped. But again the Druid saved his ass with healing.
We just added in Proficiency Dice, Hero Points and the tactical options, namely flanking. I still don't hew to a hard grid, but my players like having options with a tangible tactical advantage.
I was loving the game already, but it seemed to put them over the top. I think we'll be in great shape completing this campaign (Tyranny of Dragons) before we return to Savage Worlds.
From the DMG, all I have used are a few of the the magic items. One player has gotten into the rules on running a business and intends to break them out next session.
Been using the magic tables and the guidelines on what might show up at any given player level and so far been working out fine as it maintains the feel that at lower levels you aren't likely to find much past some potions or scrolls. But as you advance, more interesting stuff starts to show up on creatures on those rare occasions. Definitely using the basic loot rules for the higher ups so the PCs can loot their pocket change.
Using a few other rules as we go like disarming attempts, poisons, and environment for example.
After this campaign is done though we are considering a new one using the spell point system variant and see how that goes.