D&D 5E Best Official 1-3 or 1-5 Level Adventures?

[pukunui]

Thanks, all! There's plenty here to look into and keep my table busy for awhile, so I appreciate it.

Question, are these the same Scourge of the Sword Coast and Death House adventures mentioned?

SoSC - Dreams of the Red Wizards: Scourge of the Sword Coast (D&D Next) - Wizards of the Coast | D&D 5th Edition | Dungeon Masters Guild
DH - https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/Curse of Strahd Introductory Adventure.pdf

Yes, those are the ones!

With Scourge, you can theoretically use the monster stats provided but you might find they’re a bit weak since they’re playtest versions. Most monsters will have a final equivalent in the 5e books (e.g. goblinoids, duergar, orcs, ogres, etc). There’s just one or two here and there (e.g. darkenbeasts, some of the named NPCs) that will need an update. Happy to help with that if you decide to run the adventure as I've already done my own updates and still have them on file from the last few times I ran it.

 

[Sacrosanct]

There's always the Strahd intro 1-3. Very deadly but ...oh my.....

One of the players alerted the shambling mound in the very first building you run into. It tore my 1st level fighter in half immediately. so...yeah.

 

[rgoodbb]

One of the players alerted the shambling mound in the very first building you run into. It tore my 1st level fighter in half immediately. so...yeah.

Ouch! I think the whole party is actually supposed to be at the very least level 2 or 3 before getting to that point, so I imagine it would!

 

[pukunui]

One of the players alerted the shambling mound in the very first building you run into. It tore my 1st level fighter in half immediately. so...yeah.

Are you thinking of the same adventure? The entirety of Death House takes place in a single building, and the shambling mound is deep in the basement. You can't really trigger it when you first walk into the house.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Are you thinking of the same adventure? The entirety of Death House takes place in a single building, and the shambling mound is deep in the basement. You can't really trigger it when you first walk into the house.

Not when we first entered the house, but it was the first building we saw and went into. 30 min into the adventure we were in the basement and I guess one of the PCs stumbled on it. Which isn't that uncommon for players who grew up searching everything...

 

[pukunui]

Not when we first entered the house, but it was the first building we saw and went into. 30 min into the adventure we were in the basement and I guess one of the PCs stumbled on it. Which isn't that uncommon for players who grew up searching everything...

OK. I understand now. I've only run it once, and that was as an April Fool's Day one-shot (with a bunch of mixed level pregens who were a traveling carnival troupe known as April's Fools). The party went up to the attic first before going down into the basement. I feel like I had replaced the shambling mound with something else, possibly a vampire spawn, but I can't remember. Anyway, by the end, I think only one PC survived, and they couldn't figure out how to get out of the house, so they went back upstairs to "live" with the kids' ghosts.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Anyway, by the end, I think only one PC survived, and they couldn't figure out how to get out of the house, so they went back upstairs to "live" with the kids' ghosts.

Yeah, I'm not sure Death House is a great lead-in to Strahd unless "can potentially grind the campaign to a halt almost immediately" is what they were going for.

 

[pukunui]

Yeah, I'm not sure Death House is a great lead-in to Strahd unless "can potentially grind the campaign to a halt almost immediately" is what they were going for.

Precisely. The problem, as I see it, is that the designers come up with a cool concept for an adventure, and then somewhere along the line someone says, "This needs to start at level 1 so it can be a complete package", and so after all the playtesting has been done, they tack on this extra little short adventure that doesn't get the playtesting it probably needs (both for balance and to ensure it connects well with the rest of the campaign).

For instance, Death House was not in the "Cloak" playtest packet (which was designed for levels 8-11, incidentally), nor was A Great Upheaval included in the "Dagger" playtest packet. I can't recall if the "Trouble in Red Larch" bit was in the PotA playtest or not, but I think that one is a great starting adventure, and while I've used it twice to kick off unrelated campaigns, I think it does tie into the PotA storyline well enough and creates a great little home base for the PCs to explore the rest of the region covered by the adventure.

 

[Clint_L]

Not when we first entered the house, but it was the first building we saw and went into. 30 min into the adventure we were in the basement and I guess one of the PCs stumbled on it. Which isn't that uncommon for players who grew up searching everything...

I think your DM screwed up. As written, I don't think it's possible to get to the shambling mound without gaining access to the hidden stairs, which is supposed to automatically put you at level 2. They probably missed that bit.

That said, death house is plenty difficult before you even get to that point. The ghouls in the basement are notorious - I assume the scenario was balanced for a party of 8 or something, because 4 ghouls will tear a typical level 2 party apart.

 

[pukunui]

Yeah, I think the haunted house adventure included in Van Richten's is a better starting adventure for Curse of Strahd than Death House is.

 

[Parmandur]

When mu brother in law ran Death House, it was a pretty good intro to the full campaign, though he may have been playing fast and loose, and we had a somewhat large party.

 

[Nightfly]

Sunless Citadel in Tales from the Yawning Portal starts at 1st level, and the talk I've heard is that it's good.

Sunless Citadel is wonderful. Pretty much a perfect introduction to Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[pukunui]

Sunless Citadel is wonderful. Pretty much a perfect introduction to Dungeons and Dragons.

I personally didn't enjoy it that much. There are some oddities in the conversion to 5e, and it suffers a bit from the "enemies living in close proximity" thing that many older edition adventures have.

Also, when I ran it, one of the giant rats in the first encounter got a crit on a PC and insta-killed them. That was literally the first thing that happened in the adventure.

 

[Parmandur]

I personally didn't enjoy it that much. There are some oddities in the conversion to 5e, and it suffers a bit from the "enemies living in close proximity" thing that many older edition adventures have.

Also, when I ran it, one of the giant rats in the first encounter got a crit on a PC and insta-killed them. That was literally the first thing that happened in the adventure.

The one time I played 2E, as a retro indulgence for my roommate, the campaign ended after 2 sessions due to a Giant Rat TPK. Except for a pet monkey one of the PCs had.

 

[Nightfly]

when I ran it, one of the giant rats in the first encounter got a crit on a PC and insta-killed them. That was literally the first thing that happened in the adventure.

Giant Rats are challenge rating 1/8, which is the minimum. So you can't blame that on the adventure. It's not like they threw The Tarrasque at your players at first level -- it had easy, level-appropriate enemies and one of them got lucky. Crit happens.

 

[pukunui]

The one time I played 2E, as a retro indulgence for my roommate, the campaign ended after 2 sessions due to a Giant Rat TPK. Except for a pet monkey one of the PCs had.

I also killed a PC with a dire weasel in a 3.5e campaign once.

Giant Rats are challenge rating 1/8, which is the minimum. So you can't blame that on the adventure. It's not like they threw The Tarrasque at your players at first level -- it had easy, level-appropriate enemies and one of them got lucky. Crit happens.

The issue is that the adventure tells the DM to have the giant rats hide in the rubble if the PCs approach the ledge noisily. So in this instance, not only did the giant rat get a crit, but it did so with surprise, so the player never even got a chance to act before their PC died. It was literally, "You descend the rope to the rubble-strewn floor. As your feet touch the ground, some giant rats burst out of the rubble. One of them gets you in the throat. You're dead." (EDIT: I've checked and this is also how it was written in the original 3e version.)

No, I don't necessarily blame the adventure itself. That was an anecdote I felt like sharing from my experience with this adventure. Of all the 5e level 1-3 starting adventures I've run over the years, The Sunless Citadel was probably one of my least favorites to DM. I think maybe the designers were just a little too faithful in their conversion of the adventures in the Tales book to differing degrees (e.g. too much treasure in some places, old school 'gotcha' traps/encounters in other places, and so on).

 

[Clint_L]

I ran Sunless Citadel for a group of young beginners at camp last summer. It was okay - pretty basic. I removed a lot of the encounters that didn't seem to add much to the story.

 

[greg kaye]

For any here who are open to non-WotC content, the Humblewood campaign is fantastic offering a really refreshing take on D&D, It is a naturalistic environment centred around a sentient tree city and populated largely by local animal-based races. They just make a lot of sense. For instance, most of the several winged (small and medium) species have their flight limited to gliding while just a few can exert for a one-round bit of "wing flap" flying. Further flying abilities are then accessible with feats. Jerbeen (mouse folk) are fast and can jump, they're like more fun halflings. =D

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Giant Rats are challenge rating 1/8, which is the minimum. So you can't blame that on the adventure. It's not like they threw The Tarrasque at your players at first level -- it had easy, level-appropriate enemies and one of them got lucky. Crit happens.

The thing is, pretty much anything + a little bad luck can kill a first level character. I've noticed modern starter adventures that use milestone levelling tend to have social, exploration and otherwise non-lethal encounters for 1st level characters, then only throw in combat at level 2. The Death House is supposed to be one of these, but if you use XP from combat the party's chance of survival is practically zero.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I also killed a PC with a dire weasel in a 3.5e campaign once.

Saltmarsh?