D&D 5E Ranking the 2014-2024 5E Adventures

[Burnside]

We've done this before, but with all of the official adventures of the 2014/5E era now published, it seemed like the right time to look back on them as a whole.

In the past, the campaign-length adventures have often been lumped in with the anthology/compilation books, but I'm gonna create two different rankings as I think they are very different animals that serve disparate purposes for gaming groups.

5E Campaign-length adventures, my rankings:

Top Tier
Curse of Strahd (DMed multiple times)
Lost Mine of Phandelver (DMed multiple times)
Tomb of Annihilation (Played)
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (DMed multiple times)

Mid-Tier
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (DMed portions of)
Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis (Read)
Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen (Read)
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle (Read)
Dragon of Icespire Peak (DMed)
Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep (Read)
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (Played)
Out of the Abyss (DMed portions of)

Bottom Tier
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk (Read)
Planescape: Turn of Fortune’s Wheel (Read)
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (DMed)
Storm King’s Thunder (DMed portions of)
Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos (Read)

Haven't Read or DMed/Played
Tyranny of Dragons
Princes of the Apocalypse
Wild Beyond the Witchlight
Vecna: Eve of Ruin

5E Compilations/Anthologies, my rankings

Top Tier
Keys From the Golden Vault (DMed multiple adventures)
Candlekeep Mysteries (DMed multiple adventures)

Mid Tier
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel (DMed one, read the rest)
Ghosts of Saltmarsh (Read, DMed one of the small quests from the appendix)
Quests from the Infinite Staircase (Read)
Tales from the Yawning Portal (DMed two, read the rest)

Bottom Tier
None

 

[mamba]

What are your criteria, just liking it personally / being interested in the scenario? Feedback from players (where available)?

 

[Burnside]

What are your criteria, just liking it personally / being interested in the scenario? Feedback from players (where available)?

I guess like anybody I have a broad spectrum of qualities I'm looking for, but a big one for me is "how much or how little do I need to change/fix this in order to make it work at the table?"

I want to stress that of course a DM is always going to change stuff. The best adventures give you such a strong framework that you have the opportunity/feel inspired to build on it/personalize it. The worst ones have (imo) fundamental flaws that make them functionally unplayable as written so changing them becomes not an exercise in fun but rather doing basic design work and editing that the designers failed to do themselves.

Examples:

- with Curse of Strahd, as long as you keep "adventurers have to kill Strahd or they are trapped in Barovia forever and can never go home", you can change almost ANYTHING else and it will still work

- with Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, you pretty much have to take all the components of the adventure, completely rearrange and restructure them from the way the adventure presents them in order to make it playable. Also, hope your players care about joining factions (spoiler: they don't, and if they do the adventure isn't great at it anyway) and want to run a tavern (spoiler: they don't, and if they do the adventure isn't great at it anyway)

Other qualities I look for:

• Hooks and themes to help make the adventure personal for my players and their characters - to help make the story about them
• Good site-based adventure opportunities with map-based exploration offering combat, exploration, and role-playing. Site-based, map-based adventures are what 5E does best imo
• Interesting/novel/evocative detail work on NPCs, locations, and adventures (WotC is often very good at this)
• Does the big picture "plot" (often the plan, motives, and actions of the villain) make sense? WotC hasn't been great at this in recent years. Hint: keep it simple, let the players complicate it
• Players can make big, meaningful, high-stakes choices and have the info provided to them to understand the potential consequences of those choices (both Frostmaiden and Descent into Avernus fumble this badly as written, leaving the DM to fix it -which turns out to be easy to fix in Frostmaiden, much harder in Descent)
• Good art and (please!) color maps. I run online a lot and it really helps to have full-color maps to put in front of my players. If the adventure doesn't have them, I know that's another layer of work & expenses on my part sourcing those.

 

[GreyLord]

I did not read Phandelver and below...so maybe you could enlighten me.

Why is LmoP high tier, DoSWI, and DoIP Mid Tier, but Phandelver and Below rated Bottom Tier?

Isn't Phandelver and below just a rewrite of the other three tossed in to be one giant module/adventure?

 

[Burnside]

I did not read Phandelver and below...so maybe you could enlighten me.

Why is LmoP high tier, DoSWI, and DoIP Mid Tier, but Phandelver and Below rated Bottom Tier?

Isn't Phandelver and below just a rewrite of the other three tossed in to be one giant module/adventure?

No, Phandelver & Below does not contain anything from Dragons of Stormwreck Isle or Dragons of Icespire Peak at all.

Phandelver & Below is essentially two different adventures:

1. A re-print of Lost Mine of Phandelver with changes that make a great starting adventure mostly worse. For example, Cragmaw Cave (the first dungeon, for level 1 characters) is already slightly too deadly in the original version. Well, they added way more enemies and made it much harder in this version.

2. Another, totally new adventure which is nominally a sequel to Lost Mine but really doesn't pick up or expand upon anything from Lost Mine, but instead just presents a level 5-11 adventure which also happens to be set in and around Phandalin. NPCs who appear earlier in this same book who were changed and re-named from the original LMoP revert back to their original LMoP names here in the second half because sloppy editing. Adventure consists of a series of dungeons (some good, some mediocre) and a nonsense villain plot. Best for groups that want to kill things in dungeons and not think too hard about why anything is happening. Also, editing mistakes.

 

[Loren the GM]

5E Campaign-length adventures, my rankings:​

Top Tier​

• Curse of Strahd - probably the best 5e adventure. Strong out of the book itself, but add in all the fan love available and it is amazing.
• Tomb of Annihilation - really strong adventure. Biggest problem is the tone shift between the first half of finding the tomb, and the intense dungeon crawl nature of the second half in the tomb. I've run it a bunch of times, and it is good on it's own, and can grow into something incredible the more you embrace it and adjust it for your group. The nice thing is the base adventure doesn't get in the way or make this particularly difficult, and if you just want to play it straight by the book, that is still a really fun time.
• The Wild Beyond the Witchlight - this is a really well done adventure, that can be run from the book or really customized by the DM.
• Lost Mine of Phandelver - Really strong starter adventure. A little bit of weirdness around npc/bad guy motivations, but I think it overall does a really good job of introducing the game. Really feels like D&D.

Mid-Tier​

• Waterdeep: Dragon Heist - I wish I could put this one in Top Tier. The book presents a really good framework, but doesn't quite hold together without significant work from the DM. That said, this is probably my favorite of the 5e adventures that I've run (multiple times!), and is the one I would happily think about running again at any point for a group that wanted to play it. Once you wrap your head around the key elements of the story, the various factions and characters, and the city itself, there is a solid framework to let your players riff off of and have an amazing city adventure.
• Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden - I think this adventure works really well overall.
• Hoard of the Dragon Queen/The Rise of Tiamat (Tyranny of Dragons) - considering the game wasn't done when this was created, it is actually pretty solid. Some of it doesn't quite make sense or include mechanics for some things that the adventure builds to, and the two books don't quite work together. But running/playing, it truly does feel like an epic D&D adventure; it gets the right tone and is one of the most D&D-y campaigns written, even if there are a bunch of things the DM needs to figure out along the way.
• Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen - haven't run this yet, but having read it the adventure looks really solid, and the Dragonlance setting info is good.
• Acquisitions Incorporated - some good mechanics and fun adventure content, but packaged in a niche sort of way.
• Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos - a bit niche, but what is here is actually good. I like the adventure content more the mechanics, and just wish everything meshed more. Lots of great ideas, but requires some work to fix some of the flaws in the presentation of the story to make it more cohesive, and to fill in the "between adventures" stuff.
• Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage - The first few levels of the dungeon are pretty bland, but the deeper you go the better this gets. If you want a dungeon crawl, this is a really solid book. Your enjoyment will likely depend how much your table enjoys massive dungeon crawls. This book also has about the worst maps in any of the official 5e books.
• Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus - flawed adventure, but still quite run-able with some work from the DM. Does a good job of feeling like an adventure within the setting though!
• Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep - a well done adventure and some good player facing content.
• Dragon of Icespire Peak - the individual adventure elements are good, but I don't love the "quest board" nature of this book. Still, a good option as a starter set, and probably a little easier to run than Lost Mine, as it doesn't but as much narrative requirement on a new DM right off.
• Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis - Despite the vocal groups who don't like it, I actually think this is a decent set. I like the adventure, I like the light-weight ship info, and I like the setting info that is provided. It feels very easy to get running.
• Dragons of Stormwreck Isle - A solid starter adventure. I don't like the story quite as much as Phandelver, and I don't love that it only goes to level 3. But still overall it is solid, and I like it better than the Essentials Kit, and probably works better as a starter set than Lost Mines.
• Planescape: Turn of Fortune’s Wheel - I like the setup of this adventure, and almost all of the journey. It doesn't stick the landing, but this is one where a bit of DM creativity could make this one of the most memorable campaigns a group could play.

Bottom Tier​

• Storm King's Thunder - decent sandbox, with a few weak parts. Not sure it quite sticks the landing at the end, and the bad guy suffers from that thing where they just appear at the end, and some of the motivation is a bit weird to make hang together. But overall, good (and better than some of the others that made it to this same tier), just not my favorite. The middle sandbox requires a lot of work from the DM to hang together.
• Out of the Abyss - Some really strong moments in this adventure, but as whole it doesn't quite work for me as a cohesive story.
• Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk - I was really excited for the possibilities with extending Phandelver, but this campaign doesn't really ever fulfill the possibilities. It isn't terrible, but it doesn't fix any of the issues with the original Phandelver, and it doesn't extend the adventure past level 5 in a way that interests me. Really bummed that it isn't better than it is.
• Princes of the Apocalypse - This adventure just doesn't hang together well. It has a lot of good ideas, but never pulls together into something cohesive
• Vecna: Eve of Ruin - There are some great adventure set pieces in here that make a great anthology, but don't hang together as a good campaign. Questionable plot twist that breaks player agency, might be a trap for first time or unwary DMs (would be spoilers to go into details). Requires DM work to fix.

5E Compilations/Anthologies, my rankings​

​

Top Tier​

• Keys from the Golden Vault - I actually really like this set of adventures. I like that they all have a unique theme, and I like that there are player heist maps vs actual battle maps. There is lots of good thinking around what a DND heist is in this book, and some really cool set pieces. Probably works better for one offs than a complete campaign. My only big issue is I wish there were more mechanics provided around heists, something like a version of this DM's Guild product Here's to Crime (which is an adaptation of Blades in the Dark rules). I would definitely use something similar to these rules with these adventures I think.
• Candlekeep Mysteries - this is a really solid set of adventures, and I like the Candlekeep setting as a starting point for them.
• Journeys through the Radiant Citadel - another really solid set of anthology adventures. The Radiant Citadel itself could have used a bit more fleshing out, but the adventures are strong, and what is there for the setting is really good . . . I just want more of it.
• Ghosts of Saltmarsh - Would be nice if some work had been done to help pull it together into a complete campaign. That said, the actual adventure content is great, and this is a very evocative and good book. Ship rules aren't amazing, but nice to have - get this one for the adventure and setting content.

Mid Tier​

• Tales from the Yawning Portal - good set of anthology dungeons. Enjoyment will be based on how much you like running dungeon crawls. Some of the dungeons are better than others.
• Quests from the Infinite Staircase - I think there is something here for everyone - dungeon crawl, strong narrative, revised classics. But those are all (potentially) different styles of play, making this an uneven anthology for most groups, with what will almost certainly be a couple of strong highlights and the rest being ignored. I'm also not sure the quest giving hub of the Infinite Staircase is enough to really thematically link these adventures together; other anthologies have done a better job of curating a setting, tone, or theme.

5E Special Mentions, my rankings​

​

Top Tier​

• The Tortle Package - Even though Tortles got packaged into other books and is just a single adventure, this publication deserves a special call out. The included setting info and dungeon are really good, and makes a good alternative starting point for Tomb of Annihilation, or a nice addition to any Chult campaign.

Bottom Tier

• Dungeons & Dragons vs. Rick and Morty Tabletop Roleplaying Game Adventure - maybe I'm just not the target audience, but I just don't feel this is a great adventure.
• Stranger Things Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Starter Set: Hunt for the Thessalhydra - The adventure isn't great, and the licensed tie-in isn't amazing.

 

[mamba]

Isn't Phandelver and below just a rewrite of the other three tossed in to be one giant module/adventure?

no, it is a slightly changed LMoP with a new rest tacked on, the other two do not factor in at all

Whether the tacked on rest is so bad that it justifies the lowest tier for the complete end result, despite the first part being LMoP, or whether this is rating the differences in comparison to the original LMoP, I leave up to the OP to answer

 

[Casimir Liber]

I much prefer Stormwreck Isle to LMoP. I've DMed WBtWL multiple times and love it for engageability. Most other WOTC adventures I've struggled to find interesting, though have used segments of them with engaging hooks.

 

[Stormdale]

Curse of Strahd was the most frustrating F you to the players adventure I have ever had the displeasure to play. The original adventure was great. The 5e version was bloated dross and only time in 20 years we revolted against a game.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Curse of Strahd was the most frustrating F you to the players adventure I have ever had the displeasure to play. The original adventure was great. The 5e version was bloated dross and only time in 20 years we revolted against a game.

I've used segments of the 5e version. Reading the whole thing didn't inspire me to run it.