I 190% agree. As a "tight" level 6-8:adventure (or thereabouts) in 1e it was great. The added padding which neant forcing low level pcs to slog through the dross to get to the levels needed to complete the adventure was the most frustrating experience my group ever had and was dumb adventure design. We got fed up and ended up giving the key npc to Stradh as we were fed up, bored and had had enough. Done!
D&D 5E Ranking the 2014-2024 5E Adventures
- Thread starter Burnside
- Start date
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
This whole product is such a weird unforced error.
How hard would it have been to actually ask actual groups about Lost Mine, realize they probably should scale back Cragmaw Cave a touch, integrate the content from the Dragon of Icespire Peak, and do a polish run on it and call it a day?
I love Lost Mine and really wanted Phandelver and Below to be great so I could have a nice sturdy version to play and replay for the ages. Instead, I have to cross my fingers and hope that they eventually make a POD version of Lost Mine available on DMs Guild, which seems unlikely to happen any time soon.
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Enrico Poli1
Adventurer
S TIER:
1.Tomb of Annihilation (perfect hexcrawl with time limit, killer dungeon inherits Tomb of Horrors spirit, fantastic story and NPCs, masterpiece)
2.Curse of Strahd (fantastic rework of a classic)
3.Lost Mines of Phandelver (instant classic starting adventure)
A TIER:
4.Descent into Avernus (railroady, the DM must rework it, but great)
5.Rime of the Frostmaiden (achieves survival horror atmosphere)
6.The Light beyond the Witchlight (achieves fairytale atmosphere first time in D&D history)
B TIER:
7.Ghosts of Saltmarsh (good frame, but some adventures aren't very good)
8.Tales of the Yawning Portal (conversion could be better)
9.Dungeon of the Mad Mage (I know many megadungeons that aren't boring like this)
10.Dragon Heist (underdeveloped)
C TIER:
11.Storm King's Thunder (illogic, pointless and plotless)
12.Tyranny of Dragons (soulless Dragonlance clone)
D TIER:
13.Dragon of Icespire Peak (uninspired, disjointed)
14.Princes of the Apocalypse (utterly boring)
15.Shattered Obelisk (why ruin LMoP?)
16.Vecna Eve of Ruin (offended my sense of logic, ruined Vecna)
17.Xarxys (killed Dark Sun because reasons)
18.Radiant Citadel (guess what)
1.Tomb of Annihilation (perfect hexcrawl with time limit, killer dungeon inherits Tomb of Horrors spirit, fantastic story and NPCs, masterpiece)
2.Curse of Strahd (fantastic rework of a classic)
3.Lost Mines of Phandelver (instant classic starting adventure)
A TIER:
4.Descent into Avernus (railroady, the DM must rework it, but great)
5.Rime of the Frostmaiden (achieves survival horror atmosphere)
6.The Light beyond the Witchlight (achieves fairytale atmosphere first time in D&D history)
B TIER:
7.Ghosts of Saltmarsh (good frame, but some adventures aren't very good)
8.Tales of the Yawning Portal (conversion could be better)
9.Dungeon of the Mad Mage (I know many megadungeons that aren't boring like this)
10.Dragon Heist (underdeveloped)
C TIER:
11.Storm King's Thunder (illogic, pointless and plotless)
12.Tyranny of Dragons (soulless Dragonlance clone)
D TIER:
13.Dragon of Icespire Peak (uninspired, disjointed)
14.Princes of the Apocalypse (utterly boring)
15.Shattered Obelisk (why ruin LMoP?)
16.Vecna Eve of Ruin (offended my sense of logic, ruined Vecna)
17.Xarxys (killed Dark Sun because reasons)
18.Radiant Citadel (guess what)
FWIW the original is still available in the Roll20 marketplace if that helps, and physical copies of the original Starter Set are still relatively cheaply available from online sellers.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Yeah, but Lost Mine itself is printed on paper only marginally more sturdy than a magazine. Not the best format for an archival edition.
pukunui
Legend
I don't really like rating things, but I'll give it a go anyway:
Note: I have chosen not to include any of the DDB-only adventures (e.g. Rrakkma, Lost Laboratory of Kwalish, Divine Contention, Spelljammer Academy) as I don't own many of them and thus haven't read them. The ones I have read I've found to be nothing much and thus not worth commenting on.
Top Tier
Mid Tier
Bottom Tier
No Rating
- Scourge of the Sword Coast [D&D Next]
This is my absolute favorite D&D adventure, and it's from the D&D Next playtest! I have run it twice and have been itching to run it again. It's easy enough to bring into full 5e mode. The only real downside to it is that it ends kind of abruptly because its resolution got tacked on to the beginning of the original Dead in Thay (the assault on Bloodgate Keep). I think one of the best things about this adventure is that it comes with five adventure locations (a village, an elf noble's manor, an old castle, an old hunting lodge, and a dwarven temple-fortress with obligatory mine) that are all different, interesting and fully jaquaysed! There are also some fun RP bits in the central town of Daggerford.
- Curse of Strahd
Played and DMed once each; would DM again. (I have the special coffin box version that I haven't ever opened, and I have some of the minis sets that WizKids has made that I haven't gotten to use yet.)
- Tomb of Annihilation
DMed twice. The first time was as written with the time constraint so we missed a lot of content. The second time was more leisurely and thus more fun, I think. I didn't start the countdown till the PCs were ready to go to Omu. I also mixed in some Acquisitions Inc stuff with the second run-through.
- Storm King's Thunder
Played and DMed once each; would DM again. I don't get the hate this adventure gets. It's fantastic!
- The Wild Beyond the Witchlight
I am currently DMing this for my family, and I will also run it for my group that's about to finish Mad Mage. Yes, it's not to everyone's taste, but I think it does an excellent job capturing the whimsical feel of the Feywild and fairy tales, and it has a lot of fun bits and pieces. I think my Mad Mage group is going to really enjoy it.
- Lost Mine of Phandelver
This is an excellent starting adventure. It has a few quirks, but I found them easy enough to iron out. I'm fairly certain this is the only 5e adventure I've been able to DM with virtually no effort. I would happily run this again except that I would need to find a whole new group of players because everyone else I game with has either played it or run it themselves!
Mid Tier
- Acquisitions Incorporated: The Orrery of the Wanderer
Firstly, I am not an Acq Inc fan, so it surprised me how much I liked this book and the adventure. If you file off the Acq Inc serial numbers, this book provides an excellent upgrade to the basic "running a business" rules in the 2014 DMG. I would have much preferred that WotC simply adapt the Acq Inc franchise rules for 2024 than that weird bastion subsystem they came up with. Also, although I've only gotten to run parts of it, The Orrery of the Wanderer is a fantastic adventure. Yes, it has some goofy elements to it, but the adventure itself is actually solid and well written with a few handy little innovations that I wish were in more of the mainstream 5e adventures. (Sorry, I can't think of a specific example at the moment, but I'm sure I could find one if I went looking again.)
- Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
Final session tonight! I agree it's not the greatest, but it was just the right kind of old school, beer and pretzels, kick in the door, kill the monsters, and take their stuff kind of adventure that my group needed at the time. It's taken us three years to get through it!
- Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen
I have only read this one. It seems like it could be fun, but it could also have been a lot better. I don't own the optional add-on board game, but I hear it's pretty pants.
- Dragon of Icespire Peak
I have read this and run a few of the adventures separately. I think it's OK. I was hoping that the Phandelver book would be LMoP and this mixed together (maybe with the three DDB-only add-ons included as well), but alas that was not the case.
- Out of the Abyss
I have read this all the way through, and I have used a few bits and pieces in other campaigns, but I have not ever tried running it as a campaign. I think as a generic FR Underdark sourcebook, it's probably fine. As an adventure, it seems like it would be a fairly depressing one. The idea of giving the PCs a demon lord each to duke it out is kinda cool, though.
- Planescape: Turn of Fortune's Wheel
I have read this one and would like to run it. It's a bit of a light touch that really needs more detail but I think it could still be a lot of fun. I particularly like the gimmick.
- Princes of the Apocalypse
As a campaign, I feel like this adventure would get boringly repetitive. I've never run it that way. I have, however, mined it for content. I think the opening adventure, "Trouble in Red Larch", is fantastic. I've used it to kick off two campaigns so far. There are also some fantastic set pieces and mini-dungeons that can be lifted wholesale. I've probably used close to half the content in this book without actually running the main campaign!
- Tyranny of Dragons
DMed once; might consider DMing again. I don't think this campaign is anywhere near as bad as people have made it out to be. However, I do think it needs some tweaks (and not just because of the incomplete rules). For instance, I strongly recommend starting with the PCs already in the village when the dragon attacks.
- Legacy of the Crystal Shard [D&D Next]
I only managed to run this one partway through before it ended in a TPK. However, I still like it a lot, and I think it has a lot of potential. I think its gazetteer of Icewind Dale is better than the one in Rime of the Frostmaiden. I really like the adventure and would be willing to run it again some day (possibly with elements from both Rime and SKT added in).
- Murder in Baldur's Gate [D&D Next]
I have read this and used a few bits and pieces in my Tyranny of Dragons campaign when the PCs were in Baldur's Gate. The gazetteer is great and got a nice update in Descent into Avernus. The adventure is decent but I haven't run it.
- Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle [D&D Next]
This one is OK. I've run the first adventure ("Fane of the Sun Swallower") but have only read the others. The last part is probably the weakest. There's some fun sort of old school whimsical stuff in these adventures that is missing from the mainstream 5e adventures, I feel. (Like there's a magic shield with an apple tree pictured on it - once per day, you can magically reach into the shield, pluck the apple, and pull it out. If you eat it, the apple acts like a potion of healing. If an undead creature holds the shield, however, the tree appears withered and doesn't produce an apple.) There's also some goofy stuff, like a bunch of hillbilly-ish "dworcs" (half-dwarf, half-orc) that may not fly with today's standards.
Bottom Tier
- Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
I tried to DM it but gave up partway through. I am feeling a bit salty that my DM is planning to run this next, but at least I know he's planning to use it more as a framework than as written. You can read my thoughts on this adventure in more detail here: Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
- Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis
I have only read this adventure, but it's 100% linear, has a sketchy ending, and basically destroyed Dark Sun (except that WotC wisely renamed everything before it went to print).
- Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep
I was excited when I read this would be an underwater adventure. I've been wanting one of those for a long time. I do not own this book and haven't read it, but based on Justin Alexander's scathing review and other people's actual play reports, it seems like it's pretty terrible as written. The rivals idea is cool but doesn't seem to work in practice.
- Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus
I have played through this adventure, and I have read about it, but my physical copy reeks too much of binding glue, so I've never been able to read it myself. That being said, despite my DM's best efforts, I found it to be a real slog. I can't see myself ever running this. The Baldur's Gate gazetteer is great (even if it's just an updated reprint of the gazetteer from Murder in Baldur's Gate).
- Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk
This is just such a WTF?! product. I really don't get what they were thinking at all. They couldn't just reprint LMoP as written. They had to tinker with it, which made it objectively worse not better. I was excited about the idea of a Far Realm / mindflayer campaign, but wow ... this product is just so bad on so many levels, from its poor editing to its questionable design and plotting decisions. I used to think Dragon Heist was the bottom of the barrel, but this one gives it a good run for its money.
- Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos
I really wanted to like this one. I got close to running it then changed my mind. I was going to add in some of the adventures from Candlekeep Mysteries as well. I still might do it at some point. But yeah, it really needs some more work to make it shine.
No Rating
- Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
I don't own this and haven't read it and don't know enough about it to even offer an opinion so can't rate it.
- Vecna: Eve of Ruin
I have started reading this but am only partway through. Can't really offer much of an opinion yet, but I am aware of the various concerns that others have voiced.
- Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden
I have only read bits of this one. It has some obvious flaws (the area has supposedly been locked in eternal night/winter for two whole years, yet most of the book is written as if this is not the case - I presume so you can more easily ignore that part and just use the book as a setting guide to Icewind Dale). Some of the adventure feels like a retread of Legacy of the Crystal Shard but it could still be fun. I have the chardalyn dragon "mini" and would love to get to use it some day!
Top Tier
Bottom Tier
No Rating
- Keys From the Golden Vault
Currently DMing as part of an episodic campaign set in Eberron. While not all of these qualify as actual heists, I've enjoyed the first 7 adventures and am looking forward to running the rest of them. You can read more about my experiences with these adventures here: D&D 5E - Keys from the Golden Vault play reports
- Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel
I have read through this book. I really like the Radiant Citadel and wish there was more to it. I also wish the adventures actually built off the Radiant Citadel connections and lore instead of it just being window dressing. While I also respect that this book provides non-European settings, which are sorely needed, I find that this hampers my ability to cut-and-paste many of these adventures into a typical pseudo-medieval European fantasy campaign. I also think that some of the adventures as written are structurally poor with railroading, plot bottlenecks, and the like. Justin Alexander has done a good job of explaining the issues there.
- Ghosts of Saltmarsh
I have read through this book and have run a few of the adventures. I would like to use this as the basis for a seafaring campaign at some point, and I think the ships and seafaring rules in the back are great. Much better than what the Spelljammer set provided for spacefaring vessels. There are also some real hidden gems in the mini encounters section.
Bottom Tier
- Candlekeep Mysteries
I really want to like this series, but I think it's just a bit too hit-or-miss. I couldn't run it as a campaign. There are a few I would like to run as part of some other campaign someday, though. There are certainly some interesting ideas here, but I think some suffered from over-editing while others needed to be fleshed out a lot more. There are a few that are structurally poor with railroady plots as well.
- Tales from the Yawning Portal
I would give this book some leeway for being the first of its kind, but nevertheless I think that WotC played it too safe with their conversions here, introducing some wonky bits into the older updated adventures that could have been smoothed out if they'd been willing to do with these what they did with the ones in Infinite Staircase. So far I have only run the first two adventures. I didn't enjoy The Sunless Citadel but I absolutely love The Forge of Fury. I started to run the frost giant glacier adventure but didn't finish it. (I think one of the biggest issues is that the devs seem to have forgotten that they made giants Huge in 5e because they didn't resize the giant lairs. The giants all have to squeeze to get through their own hallways and such.)
No Rating
- Quests from the Infinite Staircase
I am currently reading through this one. I like Nafas and the Infinite Staircase as a framing device, and I can see myself using it to run an episodic campaign that mixes these adventures in with a bunch of the other anthology adventures. That being said, I'm finding that I'm not a big fan of some of the older edition design aesthetics. I haven't been too impressed with The Lost City so far, for instance, as I mentioned in another thread recently. And I'm still a bit leery about introducing sci-fi into my fantasy, so I'm not sure about Barrier Peaks yet.
Note: I have chosen not to include any of the DDB-only adventures (e.g. Rrakkma, Lost Laboratory of Kwalish, Divine Contention, Spelljammer Academy) as I don't own many of them and thus haven't read them. The ones I have read I've found to be nothing much and thus not worth commenting on.
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It is truly astounding how bad the add on adventure is.....and that they didn't combine the stuff from DoIP into this and make a bigger sandbox. I'm still, after all this time, confused, greatly.
Of course, I'm running it on Foundry, and WotC wouldn't let them update the mediocre maps for the VTT (or so I've read, and given what they've done with other stuff, seems likely to be true), unreal. Truly.
I'm really not sure how I'm going to proceed with this ...
I generally agree with others that the compilations are good, and getting better and better.
Here is how I would rank stuff available on DNDBeyond, including whether I was a player or a DM:
Top-Tier
Tyranny of Dragons (Player)
Lost Mine of Phandelver (DM)
Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen (Player)
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (Player and DM)
Out of the Abyss (Player and DM)
Ghosts of Saltmarsh (Player)
Lightning Keep (DM)
Lost Laboratory of Kwalish (DM)
Mid-Tier
Tomb of Annihilation (Player)
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (Player)
Princes of the Apocalypse (Player and DM)
Storm King’s Thunder (Player)
Wild Beyond the Witchlight (Player)
Vecna: Eve of Ruin (Player)
Lairs of Etharis (Player)
Bottom Tier
Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep (Player)
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (DM)
Dungeons of Dragonheim (Player)
Candlekeep Mysteries (Player)
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk (DM)
Haven't Played
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Planescape: Turn of Fortune’s Wheel
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Dragon of Icespire Peak
Curse of Strahd
Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis
Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos
Keys From the Golden Vault
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel
Quests from the Infinite Staircase
Tales from the Yawning Portal
Where Evil Lives
Tales from the Shadows
Top-Tier
Tyranny of Dragons (Player)
Lost Mine of Phandelver (DM)
Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen (Player)
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (Player and DM)
Out of the Abyss (Player and DM)
Ghosts of Saltmarsh (Player)
Lightning Keep (DM)
Lost Laboratory of Kwalish (DM)
Mid-Tier
Tomb of Annihilation (Player)
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (Player)
Princes of the Apocalypse (Player and DM)
Storm King’s Thunder (Player)
Wild Beyond the Witchlight (Player)
Vecna: Eve of Ruin (Player)
Lairs of Etharis (Player)
Bottom Tier
Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep (Player)
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (DM)
Dungeons of Dragonheim (Player)
Candlekeep Mysteries (Player)
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk (DM)
Haven't Played
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist
Planescape: Turn of Fortune’s Wheel
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle
Dragon of Icespire Peak
Curse of Strahd
Spelljammer: Light of Xaryxis
Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos
Keys From the Golden Vault
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel
Quests from the Infinite Staircase
Tales from the Yawning Portal
Where Evil Lives
Tales from the Shadows
It is really wierd what they did. The changes they made to LMOP itself are wierd too, like a random Drow farmer in Phandelver????
The LMOP plot if you include the below stuff gets less focused and less elegant and then you get into the below stuff whoch really has no direction.
I could have been a lot better - focus on the Redbrands and make a connetion to a higher up faction (Zhents or Red Wizards or Drow or whatever) with more tangible and grounded goals.
In this respect LMOP plays better as a jumping off point for POTA than it does as a jumping off point for "and below".
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
There were so many directions they could have gone with a hardcover Lost Mines. Poorly grafting on unrelated material and making LMoP harder weren't on anyone's wish list.
Split the Hoard
Split the Hoard
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