DM vision of game mechanics

You may ignore this thread, but I just want to share some of the decisions I have done and will be doing as a DM that will influence the game mechanics. Feel free to ignore this thread and simply experience the mechanics in game. However I know that as a player I would like DM to share this type of information with me, so I do just that as DM

Food, alcohol, drinking water, etc.
Rule: Characters who don’t eat or drink suffer the effects of exhaustion
In general I don't like this rule as a player. Nevertheless ToA is run in hot environment and contains some contenet related to drinking water. I do not want to steal that content from you, so
- I will ignore rules related to food. You could remove rations from your backpacks. I will not allow you to sell them
- I will not ignore rules related to drinking water
- You would still need to pay for alcohol if you want to use it for social interaction purpose (sure NPCs will be more open to share info when drunk and especially if you buy them drinks and drink with them). Prices per PHB:
Ale
 Gallon: 2 sp
 Mug: 4 cp.
Wine
 Common (pitcher): 2 sp
 Fine (bottle): 10 gp

Torches, arrows, etc.
Rules: Torch burns our in 1 hour and is a not reusable, when you shoot arrows/bolts you could retrieve only 50% of them.
I will try to remind you about need to take care of them, but we will be managing them. Not spoiling the reason why I want to do it in ToA though

Leveling UP
It may change, but I would like to have it mechanically: up to lvl 5 it will me sort of milestone and starting lvl 5 you will be earning XP for battles. You must be prepared that your lvl up progress will significantly drop starting with lvl 5 and I will probably need to introduce some mechanics to fix that.

Reasoning: as a player I do not consider lvl 1->3 as a player development. I can't imagine why would druid suddenly join circle and paladin give oth based on some goblins killed or quests resolved. Why would gain a feat over one night or fighter start swinging his great-sword twice as fast reaching lvl 5 .
I Like to imagine lvl 1->3 development reflect the fact that your PC become more adopted to the stress of adventuring lifestyle and could more reliably do what they already know. Sourcerer could reliably cast the lvl 2 spell he knew even before becoming adventurer, etc.
Reading ToA I've found several pointers to lvl 5 being career braking point, so I let you catch that level soon even if all you do is "acclimatisation"

Initiative roll
PHB is vague about what triggers battle encounter. I am OK to tailor the rules here and allow initiative roll even before "Establish positions" happens.

But in order to avoid problem with too much PCs doing ready actions I will be ignoring initiative rolls unless any PC or NPC actually want to start a fight (i.e. announce attack action, offensive spell casting, etc.)

PC talking in combat
This is my homebrew rule and I am op to remove it if you really hate it. But I consider this ridiculous if one PC provides a few sentences monologue to enemy, shouts orders to each of his 5-6 companions, casts a spell with verbal component - all within 6 seconds or a battle round while trying to avoid being hit by swords and arrows.
In combat a PC could say no more than 6-10 words each combat round, twice as much if dodge and twice as little if cast spell with verbal component. This is a guideline not a rule and DM will only interfere if player strongly fail this rule.


Ability checks
Do you see word sometimes over there? We will not be doing "skill checks" as you are probably used to. We will be doing "ability check". I want to concentrate on "ability check":
1) Choose ability (str,dex,con,wis,int,cha) most appropriate to determine of action fail or not
2) Consider if the proficiency a PC has may apply to this ability task.

Resource management. Every player have to keep track of their water usage, Insect repellent uses, etc. I will not be micro managing that. I may at some moment in the game say something like "anyone who do not have Insect repellent applied at the moment suffer this...". I don't want to micro manage your sheets, but feel free to ask me any questions