D&D 5E Rank the Official 5e Adventures

[Retreater]

Most of these replies were from a few years ago. May be interested to see if people feel the same now.

I posted this one a little over a year ago. There are more responses, which are also newer...

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

Nearly a year and a half ago, I posted the linked thread asking everyone's ranking of the official 5e adventures. Not wanting to necro the thread, I thought I would update it in this post. I'm curious your thoughts. (New additions to my list are in red text.)...

www.enworld.org

 

[Retreater]

Fail
Descent into Avernus. Why isn't this at the bottom of every list? It makes Dragon Queen look like top tier stuff! I nearly went on a half page rant about it here.

I didn't even try to run that one because I knew it would be problematic with my DMing style. If I had, I'm pretty sure it would be lower.

 

[delericho]

Ranking only the ones I own...

Top Tier
Lost Mine of Phandelver
Curse of Strahd
Rime of the Frostmaiden
Don't Bother
Out of the Abyss (frustrating one, this - the first half is perhaps their best 5e material, but then it goes to pieces)
Storm King's Thunder (this is a great guide to the region, just a shame it's marketed as an adventure!)
Dragon of Icespire Peak (but the rest of the Essentials Box is great!)
Princes of the Apocalypse
Hoard of the Dragon Queen
Rise of Tiamat

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Time to add the new adventures!



Top Tier:

1) Tomb of Annihilation

2) Curse of Strahd

3) Descent into Avernus

4) Lost Mines of Phandelver

5) Rime of the Frostmaiden

Mid Tier:

6) The Wild beyond the Witchlight

7) Ghosts of Saltmarsh

8) Tales of the Yawning Portal

9) Dragon Heist

10) Dungeon of the Mad Mage

11) Call of the Netherdeep

Low Tier:

12) Storm King's Thunder

13) Out of the Abyss

14) Tyranny of Dragons

15) Dragon of Icespire Peak

16) Princes of the Apocalypse

17) Candlekeep Mysteries

18) Journeys through the Radiant Citadel

 

[Retreater]

My most current list:
Top Tier – only minor issues (if any)
1. Curse of Strahd
2. Tomb of Annihilation
3. Lost Mines of Phandelver
Mid Tier- can be good with some work; or just “ho-hum” in delivery
4. Princes of the Apocalypse
5. Out of the Abyss
Lower Tier – needs some polish to come together as a campaign; or glaring issues that need to be addressed
6. Ghosts of Saltmarsh
7. Tales from the Yawning Portal
Below Low Tier - you'd be better off writing your own campaign
8. Storm King’s Thunder
9. Waterdeep Dragon Heist
10. Dungeon of the Mad Mage
11. Rime of the Frost Maiden
Failure Tier – unusable
12. Horde of the Dragon Queen

 

[Stormonu]

Late to the party, but ....

1) Curse of Strahd - this has been an excellent adventure since 1E, and 5E just expanded on it spectacularly.
2) Lost Mines of Phandelver - great starting adventure, well put together and hits all the good points of D&D play
3) Ghosts of Saltmarsh - the 1E versions were classic, this is a good update and a lot of interesting extras and expansions thrown into it
4) Tales from the Yawning Portal - classic update of some really good old adventures. Not meant for use as a campaign, but great to pull one or two them into an existing campaign or as a side quest

Mid Tier
Rime of the Frost Maiden - had me riveted reading, but didn't come across as well in play. The constant storm is interesting for the first couple of sessions, then ...annoying.

Failure Tier
Horde of the Dragon Queen
Lights of Xarysis - A railroad of a (disaster) adventure that tries to sell itself as 80's Flash Gordon and just fails at every point - including a (literal) murdering of Dark Sun/Athas

I don't have the other adventures, but glancing through them they did not grab me in a way that I felt I needed to acquire them (I'd be curious to see where folks rank Witchlight). I will say the Mad Max rip-off in Descent really turned me off to grabbing that one (as did other reasons), and that Dragon Heist didn't involve a dragon's hoard lost my interest as well (seems it's more of an "Ocean's 11" sort of adventure). I've got the original Undermountain series, and with Mad Mage only covering a small portion of the original, I skipped it.

Unfortunately, I am stuck in a campaign that is butchering Tomb of Annihilation, and because of that I really can't recommend it.

 

[Retreater]

Unfortunately, I am stuck in a campaign that is butchering Tomb of Annihilation, and because of that I really can't recommend it.

It's a bit of a side topic, but how are you stuck in a bad campaign? Can you give feedback to the DM or leave the game?
(I think it's a solid adventure, and moreover, life's too short for bad gaming.)

 

[Stormonu]

It's a bit of a side topic, but how are you stuck in a bad campaign? Can you give feedback to the DM or leave the game?
(I think it's a solid adventure, and moreover, life's too short for bad gaming.)

The group has point blank told the DM we want to stop, she isn't listening. Can't really leave the game as my sister-in-law is running it at my house. It's gotten to the point we've been trying to find ways to get ourselves killed of late so we can end at a TPK. We almost succeeded last session this Sunday, but the DM is too kind to let anyone die, so we're going to have to force the issue.

 

[Retreater]

The group has point blank told the DM we want to stop, she isn't listening. Can't really leave the game as my sister-in-law is running it at my house. It's gotten to the point we've been trying to find ways to get ourselves killed of late so we can end at a TPK. We almost succeeded last session this Sunday, but the DM is too kind to let anyone die, so we're going to have to force the issue.

Yeah, it sounds like it's time for an intervention, especially if she isn't listening to the wishes of the group. Best of luck to you!

 

[Blue]

Only going to talk about the ones I played in. Best to worse based solely on my personal experience with them.

Lost Mines of Phandelver - Good starting module.
Storm King’s Thunder - lots of fun, but the DM did a lot of customizing to our party so not sure how good it is base.
Descent into Avernus - good, but a bit railroad-y at times. We were following one path, and decided we couldn't pay a cost, it would help evil too much. The DM came right out and told us that there were two paths towards completion, and if we started to persue the other track that the last couple of months of sessions would have been wasted on this track. Suitably epic endings though. And wasn't fond the the vehicle combat rules. At the very least some PC needs to give up all of what they do in order to drive.
Princes of the Apocalypse - wide open, but perhaps too much so. Also had to deal with so very many NPCs.
Dragon Heist - Very railroady. If you're willing to sit back and deal with that, had fun parts.
Horde of the Dragon Queen - Started twice, never got particularly far. Wasn't too impressed with what I did see. Trying to force rivalry by blunt means, etc. Okay, I looked a little about this online and there's so much out there to fix it - could be decent with the fan fixes. But there's so much because people call out how bad it is.
Curse of Strahd - The DM worked to make this good, but there was so many non-level specific places that we were guided to by the card reading that we had no information about how tough they were, so we just died and died and died. And the remaining characters got so gun-shy. Even the DM got sick of it after a while and just fast forwarded us to attacking Castle Ravenloft so we could have closure.

I realize that I have a very different experience than others with Strahd. I've talked about that before. Don't take that as a general ranking - I've seen too many people talk about having a grand time with it. I just wonder how my experience was so different than theirs.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

The group has point blank told the DM we want to stop, she isn't listening. Can't really leave the game as my sister-in-law is running it at my house. It's gotten to the point we've been trying to find ways to get ourselves killed of late so we can end at a TPK. We almost succeeded last session this Sunday, but the DM is too kind to let anyone die, so we're going to have to force the issue.

I'm sorry @Stormonu for the laugh emoji; and I'm sure this is causing you and your group some emotional pain. But the idea of the entire group of players conspiring to get their PCs killed and the GM being too kind strikes me as very funny for some reason...

I wonder though - since you have all said you want to stop, can't you just... Not play that campaign? If she shows up and starts setting up, just say "Nope, we are not going to play that anymore - remember when we all said we didn't want to play? We are going to play this other thing" Maybe even take some sessions off and play board games or something...

 

[Eyes of Nine]

From what I have run and played:

1. Lost Mines - good first adventure, have run twice, both times with new to D&D players. Both times to great success
2. Tomb of A - played, enjoyed the heck out of it. As someone upthread said - Tomb of 9 Gods is one of the greatest dungeons. Notwithstanding I had 2 characters die, still a great adventure.
3. Out of Abyss - the kickoff, the frame, the Underdark setting, Menzoborranzen, Blingdenstone - all great
4. Icewind Dale - solid stuff. Player decisions impact the storyline. Final setting of the city was super cool. Ended abruptly I thought.
5. Dragon Queen - am only 3rd level in this campaign, which my DM has apparently heavily modified. I'm liking what he's done with it so far.
6. Witchlight (currently playing, and I"ve missed at least 50% of sessions). Pretty good. We're still only 3rd level, so a long way to go.
7. Yawning Portal - have played Hidden Shrine, just wrapped up White Plume Mtn (ran it once in AD&D waaay back in the day). Solid games. Would like to run some of the others
8. Candlekeep - we play a Candlekeep game in between other games. They are fun enough as one shots, although uneven. I think I like longer campaigns better for D&D
9. Saltmarsh - only ran one adventure, it was good and worked for what I needed
10. Mad Mage - we made it to 13th level! some parts were pretty cool. And we've applied our own over-arching motivation which is to set up a bunch of tavern franchises down there (it's not going as well as we hoped). But that's what it's required for us to stay interested. There are some cool set pieces and dungeon level themes for sure, which is why this is higher than some others.
11. Dragon Heist - only played 1/3 of the sessions. It was ok, didn't wow me.
12. Storm King's Thunder - having a huge section of the adventure be a sandbox between 4-7th level (the best levels!) feels like a waste. Woudl have been good if they had actually had set dungeons/throughline story for those levels that DMs could have ignored; or fleshed out more of the locations so there could be 3-4 levels worth of side quests. Otherwise, running it - it felt very undirected. Which apparently was on purpose.

Adventures I haven't run or played:

• Elemental Evil Princes of the Apocalypse 01-15 April 7, 2015
• Curse of Strahd Curse of Strahd 01-10 March 15, 2016
• Stranger Things Starter Set Hunt for the Thessalhydra 03-04 May 1, 2019
• Essentials Kit Dragon of Icespire Peak 01-06 June 24, 2019[4]
• Baldur's Gate Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus 01-13 September 17, 2019[5]
• Dungeons & Dragons vs. Rick and Morty The Lost Dungeon of Rickedness: Big Rick Energy 01-03 November 19, 2019
• Strixhaven Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos 01-10 December 7, 2021
• Critical Role Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep 03-12 March 15, 2022
• Journeys through the Radiant Citadel Journeys through the Radiant Citadel 01-14 July 19, 2022
• Spelljammer: Adventures in Space Light of Xaryxis 05-08 August 16, 2022

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I realize that I have a very different experience than others with Strahd. I've talked about that before. Don't take that as a general ranking - I've seen too many people talk about having a grand time with it. I just wonder how my experience was so different than theirs.

They experience of myself and others in my group matches up with yours.

I think, with it being so open, and with the random card factor, it's very much a matter of luck whether this adventure is a very positive or very negative experience.