whoa, whoa, whoa!
I LIKE Descent into Avernus - it's flavorful, fun and can be pretty epic. But best Planar adventure ever?
Dead Gods wants a word! All IMO, of course.
D&D 5E D&D 5e Adventure Reviews
- Thread starter Levistus's_Leviathan
- Start date
whoa, whoa, whoa!
I LIKE Descent into Avernus - it's flavorful, fun and can be pretty epic. But best Planar adventure ever?
Dead Gods wants a word! All IMO, of course.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
Wow, I like Descent into Avernus, but even I didn't go so far as ranking in number 1. (Again, you're free to have your own opinion, like I said in my OP, I'm just stating now why I did not put it as number 1 on my list)
So, first, it is a great planar adventure with an epic plot. It has that going for it. It also has 2 paths you can go down, so I wouldn't go as far as giving that as a benefit to them. I'd rather have had a combination of Path of Demons and Path of Devils than them be separate. Next, it is open-ended in the sense that it can go so many different ways at the end. That is a benefit that most D&D 5e adventures don't have. It's normally "Do this, or everyone dies." Descent into Avernus does not have that. There are many ways for the party to succeed on it or fail, or a mix of both. It has an epic scope, so yes, you're correct there.
It is far from the best planar adventure ever written, IMO. Though it is fairly open-ended, Curse of Strahd is even more so, and also counts as a planar adventure, as it is in the Shadowfell.
Enrico Poli1
Adventurer
Warning: SPOILERS!!
I'll defend my opinion about Descent into Avernus.
About the epic scope, it's easy to see: you can interact with many VERY important, legendary NPCs and even Artifacts. You can change the destiny of two cities in the Prime, and even the destiny of the First Layer of Hell and its Duke. The redemption attempt is credible and well menaged.
About the different paths: the Adventure can be played in very different ways and is easily replayable (the sandbox with two mutually excluding paths imply that you must play it at least two times to fully experience the contents). You can be good. You can be evil. Really good or really evil. You can try to save BG, or not. You can try to redeem Zariel, or defeat her, even take her place. You can ally with Bel or other Dukes of Hell, with Tiamat and her minions, or with some Demon Lords. Or betray them. Or you can fight against all of them at once, for the glory of Goodness. Or take the Hand and try to take over Avernus and eventually the whole of Hell.
Then there are the memorable NPCs.
And the stellar art, with the incredible "Mad Max in Hell" aesthetics.
The feeling that you are in the middle of the Blood War. And, you can do something about it!
I really love this adventure.
dave2008
Legend
OK, since I don't run published adventures, my criteria are a bit different. I look at and but these books for what extra crunch they can give me: setting lore, monsters, magic items, etc. Based on that criteria here is my list (#1 being the best):
Tales from the Yawning Portal: Not Ranked, I haven't look through this one yet.
- Tyranny of Dragons: Tiamat, enough said.
- Out of the Abyss: Demon Lords.
- Tomb of Annihilation: Acererak, atropal and a lot more.
- Princes of the Apocalypse: Princes of Elemental Evil
- Curse of Strahd: Strahd, some intersting NPCs and mosnters, and setting info.
- Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus: Bel, infernal war machines
- Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Ship and sea rules
- Storm King's Thunder. Some setting info, but not enough monsters and NPCs.
- Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage: Mad mage, everything else is hidden on the adventure - not worth it to me.
- Waterdeep: Dragon Heist: not enough interesting monsters or NPCs (or at least I didn't see them)
Tales from the Yawning Portal: Not Ranked, I haven't look through this one yet.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
Yes, the epic scope is very well done. You can save 2 well known cities. You can redeem an archdevil. You can kill an archdevil. You can kill multiple archdevils and try to conquer the Nine Hells. Very epic. It is probably the most epic story that you can do with a D&D 5e prewritten adventure.
It can be played in different ways, but I'm not so sure about it being super re-playable. Curse of Strahd is randomized at the start of the adventure, so it can easily be done multiple times. It does have 2 paths, but they fairly quickly join back together. Also, there's the bit about the Sword of Zariel that has quite a bit of exposition that could be troublesome to have the party pretend not to know if they played it again.
I can guarantee when Arkhan the Cruel shows up in my current DiA campaign none of my players will know who he is, or what he's from. They will recognize Mordenkainen, though. There are memorable NPCs, like Lulu, Zariel, Yeenoghu, Tiamat, Mahadi, but other adventures have some NPCs that are arguable more memorable, like Xanathar, Strahd, Pidlwick II, Halaster Blackcloak, Durnan, and Laeral Silverhand.
Yes, I agree 100% with this. The art is amazing, and the infernal warmachines are great.
You're actually not really ever in the Blood War, you'll probably die if you go there, and you also can't do much about it without major consequences. The point of the Blood War is to keep demons from destroying everything, and devils from conquering everything.
(Also, there is the mess of an adventure hook that is the first chapter, and that's the main reason I ranked this adventure lower than some of the others.)
So, yes, this is 100% my opinion, but Curse of Strahd and a few other 5e adventures are better than Descent into Avernus, but not my much.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Interesting that you rank a megadungeon so high yet put the also-dungeon-crawly PotA at the bottom of your list.
By no means have I read all of these, but the reason I bought PotA is that I could use it as one great big chain of adventures (as intended) or split it out into 15 separate little adventures that didn't have to be linked at all. Thus, in a way, if nothing else I got 15 old-school-size modules for the price of maybe three; and I count that as a good deal.
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
Dungeon of the Mad Mage is certainly more interesting than Princes of the Apocalypse, IMHO, but only once you get to the lower levels, where you're on asteroids or giant mechanical Halasters.
Jester David
Hero
I do reviews over on my website 5 Minute Workday.
I'll link to the longer reviews but give some quick thoughts here.
Tomb of Annihilation. Amazing.
I really liked this one. It's the one adventure I actually bothered to partially run, putting my players through the Tomb of Nine Gods. It has a good hook, the deathtrap dungeon is fantastically done as you generally know where each trap is (no surprises of gotcha! traps) and they're almost puzzles. And for people who hate that there's a big hexploration section where you're wandering through the jungle. The big problem is, of course, you have characters you're attached to, that you have grown fond of while hexploring, that can't be resurrected and then you send them into a deathtrap dungeon.
Out of the Abyss. Quite good.
There are oddities and problems but it’s really good. There's whimsy without being ridiculous and overly jokey like other Perkins modules. It feels fantastic and wondrous. There's a solid plot but sandbox elements, and a nice transition in the middle from being reactive to events to be active for events.
Tyranny of Dragons. A rollercoaster.
It's on railes but it takes you interesting places. Sandboxes are fine but we need a mix of different styles of adventure, and railroads are only bad when you're expected to do stupid or illogical things, which doesn't feel like the case here. There’s some problems with these adventures that the DM will have to work around, but there is some good stuff in here. They might work better as a source of inspiration rather than played straight, the framework for a campaign that weaves in and out of the larger story. Plus, with the limited experience, there’s lots of room for sidequests and personal stories, which are not always possible in an Adventure Path style campaign.
Curse of Strahd. Decent but problematic.
For fans of the Ravenloft adventure, this is everything you loved and more. For those who have never experienced Castle Ravenloft before, this is the classic experience in entirety, given a polish and tweak, with so much more included prior to tackling the castle. The adventure is atmospheric, with lots of amazing descriptions and imagery and lots of little details that rewards inquisitive and cautious players. And at many times it’s quite deadly, encouraging intelligent play and cunning plans over simply kicking in doors.
But I have problems with some elements of the adventure, specifically when it connects to the campaign setting (or rather, how it doesn’t and just steals names & ideas from the setting). I find it unfortunate that the adventure was designed in such a way that the biggest fans of the material will take the most umbrage with the product. I would have preferred a new story, a Return to Castle Ravenloft that tells the tale of a resurrected Strahd reclaiming his kingdom and taking revenge on the ancestors of his killers. Or another twist on the classic tale and does something new with Count von Zarovich and would surprise those familiar with the original, in addition to entertaining the uninitiated. A Tomb of Annihilation for Ravenloft.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Mixed.
This is what Tales From the Yawning Portal should have been. It’s not just random adventures slapped together but a series that is connected, both thematically and potentially as a campaign. The adventures are hit-and-miss, with most of the more recent ones being arguably better. However, the introductory adventure is one of those surprising classic that deserves it’s reputation and is still highly playable. And a couple of the middle adventures can easily be adapted or incorporated into an existing campaign, especially if you need an island dungeon quickly or high sea encounter. Suffers in that it's the place to get ship/ ocean combat rules but no ocean combat will happen in this product. It's a tease.
Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Useful.
This is very much a big book of almost two-dozen dungeons to make your own. Two dozen old school dungeon modules to throw into your campaign as needed or build a story around. It's the adventure without a pressing story and ticking clock, where you're not saving the world. And it's great if you want to return to a simple style of play where the adventurers wander into the dungeon for the sole purpose of seeking treasure, kicking in doors and attempting to turn denizens of a dungeon against each other. Which really seems to FIT the tone of Undermountain.
Baldur's Gate (Descent into Avernus). Flawed.
You start the game with characters rooted in the background of one city—characters built for one kind of campaign with potentially book-supplied backgrounds anchoring them to that city—and then you’re just expected to put all that aside as the campaign does an abrupt 180 and completely changes in tone. It wouldn’t take much work to make Descent into Avernus an amazing campaign: a different opening with the adventurers sucked into Hell and spending their first few levels helping to save people and stabilize the city before being tasked with investigating and finding a way home. But having them tied to Baldur's Gate and the gazetteer of that city is a waste and takes pages away from the real story and detailing Hell.
Princes of the Apocalypse. Simple.
The adventure feels… amateurish. The design mistakes feel like ones a rookie DM would make. The “story” is really just a series of encounters that lurches towards a conclusion and the NPCs are a bunch colourful characters that exist in a quantum limbo until adventurers interact with them and then they vanish until needed again.
The players can wander wherever they want but the challenge of the dungeons really assumes a linear progression, and this isn’t obvious. There’s precious few overland encounter areas and no reason to explore the wide open map. While there’s some small plotlines strung throughout the book but, really, the story comes down to “bad guys in dungeon need to be made dead.” The openning plot hook of missing delegates runs throughout the entire adventure when that should have been wrapped up in 5 levels. The villains might all have lengthy backstories personalities but no one is really doing anything. Not really. The villains don’t have a larger scheme or an end goal beyond being evil.
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Weak.
The investigations are very linear: you go to two locations and then follow a variable chain of encounters before engaging in a short dungeon crawl. There’s certainly room for the adventure to go completely off the rails and some writing is spent detailing key locations if it does, but there’s not much advice or suggestions for the plot in that instance. This could have been a much more interesting adventure, with more divergent plot lines and an investigation whose flow chart actually flows. And frustratingly, none of the assumed adventures truly involve a heist. This should be called “Waterdeep: Dragon Hunt“.
Storm King's Thunder. Disconnected.
The dungeons are excellent and each is radically different so there’s a lot of unique flavour. And there are a number of fairly detailed settlements, completely with NPCs. For DMs planning on stripping this adventure for inspiration, it’s a fabulous product.
But there's too much story that doesn’t really do anything but exist. There’s lots going on beyond the Breaking of the Ordning: the missing Storm King, traitorous daughters, a dragon, a kraken. But none of it really matters. The ordning breaks and just kinda sorta gets fixed off camera. The evil daughters don’t do anything and may or may not receive their comeuppance. The kraken is very likely unseen. The main plot of the adventure's climax—the kidnapping of the king—is entirely and completely unrelated to the first 3/4. The king wasn't kidnapped because of the breaking of the ordning, and his rescue doesn't solve the problem the PCs have spent the first half trying to fix and they have no reason to help him.
Tales From the Yawning Portal. Generic and lazy.
A low effort product. A mish-mash of "classic" adventures hastily upgraded to 5e with no revision or upgrading. With some spectacularly bland adventures, like Forge of Fury. To me, this is a one-shot book: something for those times when one player can’t make it to the game or you need a break from the regular campaign. Pull out some pregenerated characters or the heroes from a previous campaign and run through a classic module.
I'll link to the longer reviews but give some quick thoughts here.
Tomb of Annihilation. Amazing.
I really liked this one. It's the one adventure I actually bothered to partially run, putting my players through the Tomb of Nine Gods. It has a good hook, the deathtrap dungeon is fantastically done as you generally know where each trap is (no surprises of gotcha! traps) and they're almost puzzles. And for people who hate that there's a big hexploration section where you're wandering through the jungle. The big problem is, of course, you have characters you're attached to, that you have grown fond of while hexploring, that can't be resurrected and then you send them into a deathtrap dungeon.
Out of the Abyss. Quite good.
There are oddities and problems but it’s really good. There's whimsy without being ridiculous and overly jokey like other Perkins modules. It feels fantastic and wondrous. There's a solid plot but sandbox elements, and a nice transition in the middle from being reactive to events to be active for events.
Tyranny of Dragons. A rollercoaster.
It's on railes but it takes you interesting places. Sandboxes are fine but we need a mix of different styles of adventure, and railroads are only bad when you're expected to do stupid or illogical things, which doesn't feel like the case here. There’s some problems with these adventures that the DM will have to work around, but there is some good stuff in here. They might work better as a source of inspiration rather than played straight, the framework for a campaign that weaves in and out of the larger story. Plus, with the limited experience, there’s lots of room for sidequests and personal stories, which are not always possible in an Adventure Path style campaign.
Curse of Strahd. Decent but problematic.
For fans of the Ravenloft adventure, this is everything you loved and more. For those who have never experienced Castle Ravenloft before, this is the classic experience in entirety, given a polish and tweak, with so much more included prior to tackling the castle. The adventure is atmospheric, with lots of amazing descriptions and imagery and lots of little details that rewards inquisitive and cautious players. And at many times it’s quite deadly, encouraging intelligent play and cunning plans over simply kicking in doors.
But I have problems with some elements of the adventure, specifically when it connects to the campaign setting (or rather, how it doesn’t and just steals names & ideas from the setting). I find it unfortunate that the adventure was designed in such a way that the biggest fans of the material will take the most umbrage with the product. I would have preferred a new story, a Return to Castle Ravenloft that tells the tale of a resurrected Strahd reclaiming his kingdom and taking revenge on the ancestors of his killers. Or another twist on the classic tale and does something new with Count von Zarovich and would surprise those familiar with the original, in addition to entertaining the uninitiated. A Tomb of Annihilation for Ravenloft.
Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Mixed.
This is what Tales From the Yawning Portal should have been. It’s not just random adventures slapped together but a series that is connected, both thematically and potentially as a campaign. The adventures are hit-and-miss, with most of the more recent ones being arguably better. However, the introductory adventure is one of those surprising classic that deserves it’s reputation and is still highly playable. And a couple of the middle adventures can easily be adapted or incorporated into an existing campaign, especially if you need an island dungeon quickly or high sea encounter. Suffers in that it's the place to get ship/ ocean combat rules but no ocean combat will happen in this product. It's a tease.
Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Useful.
This is very much a big book of almost two-dozen dungeons to make your own. Two dozen old school dungeon modules to throw into your campaign as needed or build a story around. It's the adventure without a pressing story and ticking clock, where you're not saving the world. And it's great if you want to return to a simple style of play where the adventurers wander into the dungeon for the sole purpose of seeking treasure, kicking in doors and attempting to turn denizens of a dungeon against each other. Which really seems to FIT the tone of Undermountain.
Baldur's Gate (Descent into Avernus). Flawed.
You start the game with characters rooted in the background of one city—characters built for one kind of campaign with potentially book-supplied backgrounds anchoring them to that city—and then you’re just expected to put all that aside as the campaign does an abrupt 180 and completely changes in tone. It wouldn’t take much work to make Descent into Avernus an amazing campaign: a different opening with the adventurers sucked into Hell and spending their first few levels helping to save people and stabilize the city before being tasked with investigating and finding a way home. But having them tied to Baldur's Gate and the gazetteer of that city is a waste and takes pages away from the real story and detailing Hell.
Princes of the Apocalypse. Simple.
The adventure feels… amateurish. The design mistakes feel like ones a rookie DM would make. The “story” is really just a series of encounters that lurches towards a conclusion and the NPCs are a bunch colourful characters that exist in a quantum limbo until adventurers interact with them and then they vanish until needed again.
The players can wander wherever they want but the challenge of the dungeons really assumes a linear progression, and this isn’t obvious. There’s precious few overland encounter areas and no reason to explore the wide open map. While there’s some small plotlines strung throughout the book but, really, the story comes down to “bad guys in dungeon need to be made dead.” The openning plot hook of missing delegates runs throughout the entire adventure when that should have been wrapped up in 5 levels. The villains might all have lengthy backstories personalities but no one is really doing anything. Not really. The villains don’t have a larger scheme or an end goal beyond being evil.
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. Weak.
The investigations are very linear: you go to two locations and then follow a variable chain of encounters before engaging in a short dungeon crawl. There’s certainly room for the adventure to go completely off the rails and some writing is spent detailing key locations if it does, but there’s not much advice or suggestions for the plot in that instance. This could have been a much more interesting adventure, with more divergent plot lines and an investigation whose flow chart actually flows. And frustratingly, none of the assumed adventures truly involve a heist. This should be called “Waterdeep: Dragon Hunt“.
Storm King's Thunder. Disconnected.
The dungeons are excellent and each is radically different so there’s a lot of unique flavour. And there are a number of fairly detailed settlements, completely with NPCs. For DMs planning on stripping this adventure for inspiration, it’s a fabulous product.
But there's too much story that doesn’t really do anything but exist. There’s lots going on beyond the Breaking of the Ordning: the missing Storm King, traitorous daughters, a dragon, a kraken. But none of it really matters. The ordning breaks and just kinda sorta gets fixed off camera. The evil daughters don’t do anything and may or may not receive their comeuppance. The kraken is very likely unseen. The main plot of the adventure's climax—the kidnapping of the king—is entirely and completely unrelated to the first 3/4. The king wasn't kidnapped because of the breaking of the ordning, and his rescue doesn't solve the problem the PCs have spent the first half trying to fix and they have no reason to help him.
Tales From the Yawning Portal. Generic and lazy.
A low effort product. A mish-mash of "classic" adventures hastily upgraded to 5e with no revision or upgrading. With some spectacularly bland adventures, like Forge of Fury. To me, this is a one-shot book: something for those times when one player can’t make it to the game or you need a break from the regular campaign. Pull out some pregenerated characters or the heroes from a previous campaign and run through a classic module.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
Interesting that you rank a megadungeon so high yet put the also-dungeon-crawly PotA at the bottom of your list.
By no means have I read all of these, but the reason I bought PotA is that I could use it as one great big chain of adventures (as intended) or split it out into 15 separate little adventures that didn't have to be linked at all. Thus, in a way, if nothing else I got 15 old-school-size modules for the price of maybe three; and I count that as a good deal.
That's essentially what every single Adventure book has been, with varying degrees of success in providing a removable connecting framework for the modules (Storm King's Thunder has great individual modules but the story is sort of a half-baked mess, whereas Curse of Strahd is tight as a drum on both counts).
Dormammu
Explorer
Probably railroad versus sandbox is better applied to GMing style than published adventures, if one is being picky. But I assumed the context of a published adventure is how much support it gives for going off the rails.
A module that has a very linear plot and assumes players will make certain decisions or discoveries in a specific order, without discussion of alternate options, is less than ideal. This is what I assume when I read a module is a railroad.
I assume a sandbox module probably gives more alternatives for paths to reach key plot points. Open exploration areas can be a true sandbox, but mostly I'm looking for suggestions for what happens when players miss certain key discoveries or go off the ideal path.
Compared to a home campaign, any published module will be far more on the railroad side than a sandbox in general.
A module that has a very linear plot and assumes players will make certain decisions or discoveries in a specific order, without discussion of alternate options, is less than ideal. This is what I assume when I read a module is a railroad.
I assume a sandbox module probably gives more alternatives for paths to reach key plot points. Open exploration areas can be a true sandbox, but mostly I'm looking for suggestions for what happens when players miss certain key discoveries or go off the ideal path.
Compared to a home campaign, any published module will be far more on the railroad side than a sandbox in general.
Similar Threads
D&D General
Sandbox and/or/vs Linear campaigns
