D&D 5E Best Third Party (not WotC) D&D Adventures?

[The Soloist]

Many good suggestions, thank you! Keep em coming.

 

[Loren the GM]

• Call from the Deep - the most D&D adventure path that isn't actually published by WotC. Really fun pirate adventure! Lots of support (maps, DM info and suggestions, etc.) on the Ghosts of Saltmarsh Discord.
• The Demonplague - Sandbox adventure with lots of DM support guidance written into the book.
• Freyja's Tears (Svilland) - epic 1-20 Viking adventure. I'd recommend the setting book as a companion as it gives more character creation options and info about the world.
• Odyssey of the Dragonlords - Epic Greek-esque mythology campaign with a ton of user support available to fix some of the issues and play better through it's Reddit page and Discord - also check out this PDF for collected ideas.
• Raiders of the Serpent Sea - from the creator of Odyssey of the Dragonlords, and Viking campaign in the same shared world.
• Ruins of the Grindleroot - Excellent adventure from SlyFlourish, with lots of advice and context for the setting.
• The Scarlet Citadel - classic dungeon crawl
• Tales of the Old Margreve - anthology of adventures set in a deep, ancient forest
• War of the Burning Sky - heroic fantasy war campaign
• Zeitgeist: Gears of Revolution - steampunk adventure where characters are government agents hunting spies, assassins, and international conspiracies.
• Carbon 2185 - Cyberpunk setting with several good adventures available
• Humblewood - woodland critter setting and adventures (follow up book has even more adventures in it)
• Farsight / Chronicles of the Edge - Sci-fi space opera conversion with a setting and several adventures
• Born from Ice: Stone Age Roleplaying - Blood and Clay - shameless plug, I'm developing Born from Ice currently. No magic prehistoric stone age setting. This adventure is free! Be sure to get the free Quickstart Guide as well.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Here are two of mine:

• Empire of the Ghouls
• Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands

 

[Stormonu]

<removed>

 

[Steampunkette]

I'm currently working on "10 Minutes 'til Sunset" which should be pretty great... Starts out with the party on the Plane of Shadows known as the Dusklands. All red light and black silhouettes. Their souls have been taken, or stolen, by a broker, and they have to do a heist on a Ghost Train to reclaim their souls.

After they get out of the Dusklands just outside of Gallowvale they can either wait a week for the next Stagecoach to arrive, or try working for one of the local families to get enough funds to buy horses and stuff to travel to where the broker resides. The Bakers and the Carmines are at odds, and siding with either makes for a lot of potential enemies.

Then it's a wild west travel sequence to New Gold City and the House of the Rising Sun. For it's there the broker makes his deals and gambles away souls... and he sure could use a good killing.

 

[jayoungr]

See these threads for more recommendations:

D&D 5E - Best Third Party Adventures

After reading many conflicting opinions about the quality of WotC's hardcover adventures (a subject I think we can all agree is one that there probably won't be a consensus), it got me thinking: What are the best THIRD PART adventures written for D&D 5E? Heck, even Pathfinder 2e (since that's...

www.enworld.org

D&D General - Could you recommend - third party - long adventures (or adventure paths) for D&D or Pathfinder?

Could you recommend - third party - long adventures (or adventure paths) for D&D or Pathfinder? The only three I am aware of are Ptolus, Chains of Asmodeus and Empire of the Ghouls. My group loves game of thrones style roleplay (intrigue at high court), but anything that is centered around...

www.enworld.org

One adventure that I haven't seen mentioned yet is Courts of the Shadow Fey from Kobold Press:

Courts of the Shadow Fey for 5th Edition - Kobold Press Store

Intrigue & Adventure in the Shadow Realm! A 5th Edition planar adventure for 7th- to 10th-level characters, designed by Dan Dillon and Wolfgang Baur The Free City of Zobeck has thrived since overthrowing the tyrannical Stross family. But an ancient bargain gives the Queen of Night and Magic a...

koboldpress.com

 

[Burnside]

This is my best-selling/best-reviewed one. DM me and I'll send you a comp link for it:

Secrets of the Blind Palace - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Here are two of mine:

• Empire of the Ghouls
• Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands

I'm running Empire of the Ghouls now and while it's a lot of work to pull it out of Midgard -- I backed Kingdom of the Ghouls years ago, and I remember it being much less setting-specific -- it's a truly epic adventure in the way I'd always hoped TSR's drow adventures were, but never quite seemed to be.

The Ghoul Imperium is terrifying and even after the campaign is over, I suspect my players are going to be waiting for the day that the surface world gets overrun by them, which feels inevitable.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Her horror adventures are pretty good, too, and all of them can be run with zero prep, which is amazing (and should be instructive to a lot of other authors).

This is such a rare and valuable feature in adventure writing. As a teenage nerd I loved reading tome-like supplements. As an aging nerd I don't have the time or interest.

Somebody in another thread asked for Marmoreal Tomb reviews. I decided not to reply, but it is the exact opposite of "able to be run with no prep". It's...a lot of words.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I'm running Empire of the Ghouls now and while it's a lot of work to pull it out of Midgard -- I backed Kingdom of the Ghouls years ago, and I remember it being much less setting-specific -- it's a truly epic adventure in the way I'd always hoped TSR's drow adventures were, but never quite seemed to be.

The Ghoul Imperium is terrifying and even after the campaign is over, I suspect my players are going to be waiting for the day that the surface world gets overrun by them, which feels inevitable.

For us, it was our deep dive into Midgard and that was awesome.