Any recommendations for the best adventures?
There were very few standout adventures during the short, turbulent lifespan for this edition. Most of those have already been mentioned in this thread, and will likely be repeated again. But I'll reiterate that
Reavers of Harkenwold is often regarded as one of the best starting adventures (level 2-3) of any edition. I even had a project thread about expanding it and connecting it more directly to the other highly regarded adventure,
Madness at Gardmore Abbey. You can view that thread (with links to more) over
here.
More importantly, most physical products are becoming increasingly more difficult to track down, and consequently more expensive. Your best bet will be the
DMs Guild for digital (pdf) versions, including
Dungeon magazine.
Historically,
Dungeon has been one of the best resource for finding a large variety of adventures. The trick is figuring out which issues have the most relevant options for your needs and tastes. Unfortunately, a lot of the offerings during this cycle were (IMO) more misses than hits.
- The Against the Giants series (issues 196-200) is a great conversion from the 1e originals.
- The Chaos Scar (various issues) is a sandbox-style campaign of episodic adventures for heroic tier characters.
- The Scales of War is a massive "Adventure Path" (I hate using that term, but it actually fits this time) that takes characters from level 1 to 30. Not recommended for a casual group, or a casual DM.
The Encounters modules are another option, but they are not your typical adventures. Designed for organized play, these were originally designed to be played in public at the rate of one encounter per weekly session. Great for busy DMs who wanted to play regularly but didn't have the time to prep for more than one encounter at a time. Not so much for the rest. But like everything else, they can easily be expanded and used as a spring board for your own campaigns.
One of the greatest strengths of 4e, however, is how incredibly easy it is for DMs to build encounters. Unfortunately, it wasn't a strength the company play to strongly enough in their products. I would have loved to have seen more "DM toolbox" products like the
Neverwinter Campaign Setting that offered more references, ideas and inspiration than hard-coded scripts and plotlines with just enough new crunchy bits to use.