D&D 5E Rating 5e adventures - best for my group?

[DEFCON 1]

I ran Horse of the Dragon Queen as a road map. Wound up meh.

I think you meant 'Wound up neigh.'

 

[cmad1977]

I think you meant 'Wound up neigh.'

Heyoo!!

 

[Quartz]

Have you considered Way of the Wicked?

 

[Retreater]

Have you considered Way of the Wicked?

Nah. Thanks for the suggestion, but converting from PF would be too big of a chore. Plus it looks like it is centered on evil player characters, which is a big no-go for me personally.

 

[cmad1977]

Maybe an adventure in... I forget the book... it’s got Sunless Citadel.

 

[Jester David]

Dragon Heist and then Curse of Strahd with Trollskull Manor taken by th Mists and placed halfway between Valaki and Barovia,

 

[Dax Doomslayer]

One adventure I liked and it's length is around the same as Phandelver is Scourge of the Sword Coast. It had a number of different sites and my group enjoyed it a immensely....

 

[clearstream]

In a few weeks I'll be needing to introduce a new campaign to my players. Whether or not we stay with 5e is up in the air, but I'd like to have some options to present them.
I'm looking for something that can be straightforward and kinda episodic since we play biweekly and sometimes story details are forgotten between sessions.
Also we need to avoid Storm King's Thunder and Curse of Strahd (as we've already played those).
What are your thoughts of some of the better campaigns out there?

My players found that OOTA felt epic, but dark and dire. From a DM's perspective it is a highly complex campaign that takes a lot of work to run well. Not helped by lack of clarity in the book itself. Often there is some cunning thinking behind what is laid out, but without solid DM-to-DM explanations to guide you! So you have to parse the whole thing and figure out what's afoot.

OOTA is worth the money, but challenging to DM. In summary.

 

[ArwensDaughter]

TOA is the only one I've run (am still running) that you haven't yet, so it's the only one I'll comment on.

-If opt for this and you do use the initial hook of someone hiring/asking them to investigate the death curse, I would encourage you to develop a way for their to be occasional communication between the quest giver and the party. This can help keep them on track and jog their memories.

-Like all the published adventures, there is a helpful "Enhancing" thread in these forums chock full of great ideas and suggestions of how to address the weak points of the adventure.

-TOA is the first adventure after the creation of the Guild Adepts program. This means that there are a number of adventures on DMsGuild set in areas of Chult that TOA names/shows on the map but doesn't detail. Handy if players go off in those directions and/or if you and your players like the setting and want to do more there.

-It is very sandboxy, despite the time pressure of the death curse. So players can go nearly anywhere. In the latter part of the adventure, this means 2 chapters prepped and ready to go each session. I've been finding this a bit challenging, although thankfully my players have been unwittingly kept to only one of the chapters. [Note: I other respects I like the sandboxy nature of TOA]

-On the other hand, during the jungle exploration phase/chapter, you can have a good sense of where the party is heading, and can limit your prep for the next session to those areas. (Although travel through the jungle can also be a bit of a slog; there are suggestions in the enhancing thread on how to address that)

 

[collin]

Lost Mines of Phandelver (I have DMed it twice) is still the best official WoTC 5E adventure. Even experienced groups will enjoy it. Although it covers only levels 1-5, if you do all the side-quests it can easily run a few months. Great for casual play - straightforward and episodic, but freedom to explore is there if you want it.

Horde of the Dragon Queen (I have read but never played) is actually kind of underrated. Episodic and fairly easy to run, though it requires more work from the DM than LMoP does. Its flaw is that it has the drawbacks of a railroad (little freedom of a choice) but often fails to include the virtues of a railroad (depth, specificity, and detail). Still, I think there's some very good stuff in there and it's often unfairly maligned.

Rise of Tiamat and Princes of Apocalypse I've neither read nor played.

Tales of the Yawning Portal...I mean, it's certainly episodic. I would not enjoy running all the dungeons in this book. I did run Sunless Citadel for my players and they enjoyed it (and it's very easy to run). I question whether some of the adventures included really meet the criteria of being "best of." A good purchase for plug-in dungeons; I think running it through as a campaign would be boring.

Out of the Abyss (Have used some pieces of it in homebrew campaign) has some excellent ideas, characters, set-pieces and locations. Whether it all really holds together as a campaign is another story. There is some amazing content in this adventure, but the book is miserably organized and the burden on the DM to sort it out is considerable.

Tomb of Annihilation - I'm 15 sessions into this as a player and I think it's great, with the caveat that it's hard to say how much of that is due to my DM being excellent. So far, I love many of the locations, encounters, and exploration. I felt it bogged down a little early on in Port Nyanzaru, but picked up quickly once we entered the jungle. Haven't read it myself, but my sense is that it requires considerable prep from the DM, though perhaps not quite as burdensome as SKT or OotA. More sandbox than episodic.

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist - i did a full review here.

This is a good list, but not all of the choices are good, imo. I am not a fan of Hoard of the Dragon Queen. It is not well written and very rail-roady. I have read similar comments about the sequel: Rise of Tiamat. I think Tomb of Annihilation is very good, but it could take your group a year or more to get through it.

I would narrow it down to these three:
1. Lost Mines of Phandelver
2. Tales of the Yawning Portal
3. Waterdeep: Dragon Heist

A fourth option is to check out DM's Guild. There some very good adventures there. Most are one-off's, but there are a few continuing sagas, and you could always string a few individual scenarios together.