D&D 5E Looking for Short Adventure Recommendations

[Elodan]

Looking for some recommendations for shorter adventures, similar in size and scope to 1E modules. Particularly looking for low level adventures as I’m thinking of giving our current DM a short break and run something for a session or three (first time running in a long time).

We’ve already gone through most of the WotC adventure compilation books. Adventure League adventures are out as a couple of players are heavily involved in it.

Thanks.

 

[DemoMonkey]

"The Orc and the Pie"

 

[Burnside]

This is my best-selling one, Secrets of the Blind Palace. 5-7 hour haunted mansion adventure with scaling for levels 1-4:

Dungeon Masters Guild

www.dmsguild.com

There is a YouTube review by RogueWatson linked there that gives a good overview.


The wealthy Von Crofts hire a party of adventurers to find the body of their dead son in a haunted pleasure palace – and to bring him back to life. To aid in their quest, the resurrectionists are provided with a guide: the only survivor of the previous expedition, a bard who has been unable to speak a word or sing a note since she escaped from the Blind Palace.
A thrilling adventure filled with mystery, discovery, choices that matter, engaging role-playing, and exciting combat. Inspired in part by the poem The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allen Poe, and by the novels Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and The Shining by Stephen King, and by the Evil Dead movies

 

[timbannock]

Uncaged volumes 1-4. They are all one-shots, but easily half of them beg for an additional couple scenes to setup or wrap up, so you could make them more than a single session's worth of gaming with minimal work.

Same with 12 Days of Midwinter and the many entries in the Encounters in the Savage... series. All of these are DMsGuild.

Non-Guild: Mini-Dungeon Tome (the editing is pretty rough though) and Sly Flourish's Fantastic Adventures. The latter is designed for low levels, but I find it's easy to increase with simple monster swaps.

 

[Voadam]

Death in Freeport 20th Anniversary Edition is a 5e redo of the 3.0 adventure by Green Ronin that came out when the OGL was first released.

City based adventuring, investigation, pirates, cosmic horror. A bit of a Call of Cthulhu investigation adventure in D&D (meaning a world with orcs, PC wizards, and an adventure with combat). 40 pages for the PDF. I had fun running this in the 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e eras.

There was a full trilogy of modules in 3.0 era (and then 3.5 Shadow of the Demon Lord systems updates and conversions) but the first stands on its own as a story, though not all mysteries it raises are answered.

 

[Thunder Brother]

I've enjoyed running the adventures published by The Arcane Library. It helps that the modules are really well formatted.

One adventure, The Secret of Skyhorn Lighthouse, is available for free on DMsguild.

 

[jayoungr]

Looking for some recommendations for shorter adventures, similar in size and scope to 1E modules. Particularly looking for low level adventures as I’m thinking of giving our current DM a short break and run something for a session or three (first time running in a long time).

Any particular setting, theme, mood you're interested in?

Here are a few that I've run and enjoyed. They all have a mystery component, since I enjoy that sort of thing--plus, it makes for good roleplay opportunities.

The Tournament at Scornubel (adjustable level):

The Tournament at Scornubel - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

The Tournament at Scornubel - n this combination of a mystery adventure and downtime event for characters of 1st-10th level, PCs can compete in seven

www.dmsguild.com

House of the Midnight Violet (level 3):

The House of the Midnight Violet - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

The House of the Midnight Violet - "This was a great adventure to drop into my ongoing campaign - it hits just the right kinds of horror notes, and has a r

www.dmsguild.com

The Clockwork Queen (level 3):

The Clockwork Queen - Adventure - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

The Clockwork Queen - Adventure - "Everybody had a great time!" "Really fun to DM... a perfect one-shot" "We took lousy [playtest] notes... because we wer

www.dmsguild.com

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Goodman Games has a 5e adventures line that sounds like it would fit your needs:

Goodman Games | Fifth Edition Fantasy|Your Source for Adventures

goodman-games.com

 

[Burnside]

House of the Midnight Violet (level 3):

The House of the Midnight Violet - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

The House of the Midnight Violet - "This was a great adventure to drop into my ongoing campaign - it hits just the right kinds of horror notes, and has a r

www.dmsguild.com

I really like this one as well.

 

[aco175]

I'm running the Essentials Box right now and it it is rather easy to run and fairly freeform for the players. May be fun to open it up and be a bit gonzo.

Otherwise there are a few Phandalin adventures that take place after the first box set if you have played LMoP. May be cool to have the group come back to the town with some of the changed in the new modules.