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

[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?