D&D 5E Rank the Official 5e Adventures (Updated)

[TheSword]

Great ideas! I'd probably use Second Darkness with Out of the Abyss, and maybe Agents of Edgewatch for Dragon Heist.

I’ve not seen the 2e pathfinder stuff to be honest. The reason I suggested Second Darkness was due to Riddleport… particularly the first book with the golden goblin. Though perhaps Council of Thieves would work as well. I don’t that that path though other than it being set in Riddleport too.

 

[MerricB]

The hook suffers from serious one-point failure. The PCs have absolutely no reason to trust this cloud giant who just showed up to a town that was recently ransacked by cloud giants, but if they don’t, the adventure just doesn’t happen. Also, there’s a huge chunk of the adventure that’s literally just “run some other adventures until the PCs are high enough level for the next part” with no other guidance. I’d be willing to bet the parts that seem “a bit lumpy” are the parts that are actually written in the adventure, and the good parts are entirely of your DM’s creation. Not because they’re going off-script but because there isn’t even a script to be on.

With Storm King's Thunder, the best advice I can give is to ignore "A Great Upheaval". It is designed to get the PCs up to level 5 really quickly, and, like the other "fast track" adventures (in Princes and Curse), actually manages to detract from the adventure.

SKT works a LOT better if you come into it from the Starter Set. The proper structure is:

• You are adventurers wandering the Sword Coast doing quests
• You discover a town being attacked by giants and help.
• You return to wandering the Sword Coast doing quests, but - oh look - there are more giants about
• Harshnag finds you and the plot proper begins.

That's what it's designed as. Problem is, when you play "A Great Upheaval" first, then you're thrown into the "Giants are attacking" storyline way before you're ready for it - and then you abandon the storyline for no good reason, because it assumes you're wandering adventurers. SKT is a brilliant adventure to introduce to the players when they don't know it's coming.

It's my third-favourite adventure of the releases.

Second favourite is Curse of Strahd. You probably know why.

My favourite is Tyranny of Dragons. And it's one I put in the top 5 of all D&D adventures of all time.

Tomb of Annihilation has two major problems:

• The quest for the Soul Monger is handled really badly. It's an investigation with nothing to investigate. (There are about 2 or 3 NPCs who know where it is, and a huge jungle with no clues to its presence).
• The final dungeon is a bit too big and one-note. (Big wouldn't be a problem if there were more NPCs to interact with, but it's long enough that the players may forget while they are there).

I do think Omu is amazing. And the jungle crawl is good - but it's not really integrated well into the adventure. (More clues about the Soul Monger there would make it a lot better).

Cheers!

 

[Parmandur]

My favourite is Tyranny of Dragons. And it's one I put in the top 5 of all D&D adventures of all time.

Based on my own experiences, I definitely feel Tyranny of Dragons is underrated. Best ever is a fascinating claim to stake: I'm curious as to your reasoning?

 

[MerricB]

Based on my own experiences, I definitely feel Tyranny of Dragons is underrated. Est ever is a fascinating claim to atake: I'm curious as to your reasoning?

Rise of Tiamat is one of the few adventures that has the world react to the PCs. You've got the factions taking a major stake in events, and they pay attention to the PCs more and more as their strategies pay off (or get annoyed at them due to their decisions).

Both adventures are also so varied of experience. Yes, there's a linear progression between episodes, but each chapter gives an entirely new situation. And there is wide variation of approach. Consider both Castle Naerytar and Skyreach Castle. Both sections have factions that can help the characters, but do the PCs realise that? When they do, the way the section plays out can be completely different from the "kick in the door and fight" style.

They are also rich with NPCs, and the Council of Waterdeep brings back a few important NPCs from Hoard of the Dragon Queen to maintain continuity. The Council, if run well, can offer an amazingly rich role-playing experience.

Are they flawless? No. It doesn't help that they'd work much better with the playtest monsters than the released monsters (both the vampire and assassin of the original are a lot weaker in their playtest forms). And the finale of Rise of Tiamat would greatly benefit from a better explanation of what each of the enemy forces do if opposed or unopposed. There are other issues as well, but those are the ones that annoy me the most.

I've run the whole series three times now (the same number of times I've run Curse of Strahd). They're adventures that reward you well with rich experiences - which is why, along with the Desert of Desolation series, I tend to put them at the very top tier of D&D adventures.

See also: My Favourite D&D Adventures - Merric's Musings

Cheers!

 

[The Green Hermit]

Well note that ToD has an asterisk, indicating that I haven’t played or DMed it, so its placement is just based on my secondhand impression. I have both played and DMed HotDQ though, so its position is based on experience, and I’m much more confident in that evaluation. But from what I’ve heard, it sounds to me like ToD plays much better than HotDQ does. Maybe it should be in lower tier rather than mid? I dunno, but I get the impression that it should at least escape the failure tier.

RoT is the second half, though. ToD is the entire thing, meaning that it includes HotDQ.

 

[Charlaquin]

RoT is the second half, though. ToD is the entire thing, meaning that it includes HotDQ.

Oh, yeah. I meant RoT.

 

[Bolares]

Tomb of Annihilation has two major problems:

• The quest for the Soul Monger is handled really badly. It's an investigation with nothing to investigate. (There are about 2 or 3 NPCs who know where it is, and a huge jungle with no clues to its presence).

This was not my experience running it at all. Reading the adventure it sure does seem that there are no clues. But the book is design in such a way that choices the players make that would seem to be random will always bring them closer to Omu. Your choice of guide helps with this, your first expedition probably will give clues, each of the most probable jungle locations give you directions to wither a clue or to Omu itself. My players never felt like they were not advancing in their investigation.

And the jungle crawl is good - but it's not really integrated well into the adventure.

What do you mean about there not being integration into the adventure? My biggest problem with it is that Chult is full of interesting places and my players really wanted to hexcrawl trough it, but the main plot was to urgent, so if given the choice between exploring some place new and following up on the death curse, they would chosse the main plot.

 

[Parmandur]

This was not my experience running it at all. Reading the adventure it sure does seem that there are no clues. But the book is design in such a way that choices the players make that would seem to be random will always bring them closer to Omu. Your choice of guide helps with this, your first expedition probably will give clues, each of the most probable jungle locations give you directions to wither a clue or to Omu itself. My players never felt like they were not advancing in their investigation.

My experience suggests that Perkins has prioritized emergent play in a very effective manner, which isn't necessarily obvious from reading alone.

 

[Retreater]

This was not my experience running it at all. Reading the adventure it sure does seem that there are no clues. But the book is design in such a way that choices the players make that would seem to be random will always bring them closer to Omu. Your choice of guide helps with this, your first expedition probably will give clues, each of the most probable jungle locations give you directions to wither a clue or to Omu itself. My players never felt like they were not advancing in their investigation.

What do you mean about there not being integration into the adventure? My biggest problem with it is that Chult is full of interesting places and my players really wanted to hexcrawl trough it, but the main plot was to urgent, so if given the choice between exploring some place new and following up on the death curse, they would chosse the main plot.

The best way to run Tomb of Annihilation is to ignore the Death Curse until later in the adventure (like when the party gets in the vicinity of the Tomb.)
In hindsight, I would've ignored/downplayed the Frostmaiden's curse in Rime of the Frostmaiden until the party was closer to dealing with it.
Having a party adventure for levels 1-8 with an earth-shattering calamity in the background seems silly when the bulk of the adventure content is devoted to exploring side quests in a large open world.

So in ToA, I would probably add a mid-boss warlord in the jungle for the party to find, or ramp up the importance of Ras Nsi. In RotFM, pick a faction early and focus on them (maybe the duergar) and have the party seek out Sunblight - and then have the winter curse happen.

Breaking them up into 3 or 5 level "mini-arcs" is probably the way to do it.

I'm curious about how I'm going to salvage RotFM at this point. I likely will just have the party end the winter curse and then move on to another storyline.

 

[Bolares]

The best way to run Tomb of Annihilation is to ignore the Death Curse until later in the adventure (like when the party gets in the vicinity of the Tomb.)

yeah, I tough of doing that, but in the end my players liked having a clear objective, and had backstories completely invested in lifting the curse.