D&D 5E Recommend a 5e AP

[fjw70]

So far in 5e I have been running mostly older edition modules and converting on the fly to 5e, with a few AL adventures thrown in.

I have been been waiting for electronic versions of the 5e Adventure books to use them. Now we will have them tomorrow. So which AP should I start with?

the group consist of my three sons (16, 11, and 8) and three of my middle sons friends. We have been playing in and off through the summer and they will be level 3 when school starts in a couple weeks. We have mostly been running through the Keep on the Borderlanda.

We will take a couple weeks off when school starts and then when we get started again I am looking to run a 5e AP. What do you recommend? And why?

 

[SuperTD]

Really depends what type of game you're looking for.

Do you want a linear, more plot driven adventure? Hoard of the dragon Queen/Rise of Tiamat.

If you still want a plot but a more sand-boxy, I'd recommend Out of the Abyss of Storm King's Thunder.

If you want something sand-boxy and more just about exploring a small region and clearing dungeons, Princes of the Apocalypse and Curse of Strahd fit the bill.

Finally, if you want a set of small unconnected adventures that you can drop in and run, Tale from the Yawning portal is the only official hardback offering.

In a month Tomb of annihilation will be dropping, which seems like it's going to be an exploration based sandbox like Curse of Strahd (although a different theme) or, from what I've heard, Isle of Dread.

Personally I've only ran Princes of the Apocalypse. It's good if you just want to explore reasonably cool dungeons, but has very little story to it. I ended up ripping the meager plot it had out and replacing it. I've read all the adventures though, and I'd say Curse of Strahd looks like a very fun one to explore, and Out of the Abyss seems much better than the Tyranny of Dragons books if you want more of a story.

 

[LordEntrails]

Well, I've only run PotA, but I can recommend it. It was pretty close to what I was looking for, an open world with various things going on and a bunch of evil bad guys to kill. You can play it linearly if you only give the right plot hooks, or you can leave it pretty open (like I did).

Either way though their is a logic/plot map posted someone where someone put together that will help you connect and keep track of all the story lines. IMO it was not easy to follow what was supposed to be happening when or where. Also note that their is a corrected area map (different scale and event locations) that has been made available by Mike Schley.

Do note, though I assume you mean the adventure will be available electronically tomorrow using DDB, it has been available electronically (along with all other WotC products) from initial release on FG. Don't know why everyone always forgets/ignore that, but it's there.

 

[fjw70]

FG is there but I don't consider that viable for non-VTT play.

 

[Zardnaar]

PotA is probably the best one perhaps CoS.

HotDQ don't bother and SKT is not all that either.

 

[Demetrios1453]

PotA is probably the best one perhaps CoS.

HotDQ don't bother and SKT is not all that either.

Hmm, to each their own I guess. I loved SKT and found PotA to be a bit meh...

Sent from my VS987 using EN World mobile app

 

[Croesus]

I'm currently playing Out of the Abyss and no one is really enjoying it, neither players nor GM.

I ran Princes of the Apocalypse for about 18 months before they finally defeated the Prince. I'd give the module a B- grade. It's somewhat disorganized, the map is really messed up, and the middle to late portions are basically a series of dungeon crawls. That said, my players mostly enjoyed it after I added a considerable amount of new material to break up the tedium of "yet another dungeon". If you decide to run it, check out the following links for good ideas/fixes:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...se-quot-(Practical-stuff-to-try-at-your-table!)

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?564922-Tightening-up-editing-Princes-of-the-Apocalypse

http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com.br/2015/04/elemental-evil-guide-to-princes-of.html?m=1

http://slyflourish.com/tying_the_threads_of_princes.html

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ports-Princes-of-the-Apocalypse-sessions-1-23

There are additional threads on the boards, these are just the ones I have bookmarked.

 

[fjw70]

Thanks for the recommendations and keep them coming. Maybe a more linear AP would work best for this group.

 

[hastur_nz]

For a bunch of kids, I'd rule out Curse of Strahd, I think a lot of the fun for us was definitely not PG-rated. The difficulty level is kinda all over the place too, it really depends on the skill and maturity levels of the players.

I'm currently running Storm King's Thunder, and you could certainly re-work Chapter 1 to start at 3rd level, but IMO the adventure as written has serious flaws so as DM you'd have to be prepared to do a lot of work to make it less of a random sandbox through various sections, and/or also be prepared to buy something you only use about 50% of. It's designed to be mostly hard fights with lots of rest in between, which isn't to everyone's taste.

I was a player in Out of the Abyss, we only did the first half, and I don't think any of us would rate it as especially enjoyable for a lot of it, and for kids or adults I think the 'endless insane enemies you have to fight or run away from' gets pretty tiresome, especially when the whole thing takes place away from anyone's 'home base'. People who love it are, as far as I can tell, all DM's, not actual players it was inflicted upon.

I haven't personally run or played in any earlier 5e products; my quick read-throughs showed that the actual 'plot' was often hard to find, except for a mostly linear series of set-piece encounters, or if a piece was more sandbox the guidance for the DM was very thin.

Unfortunately, the perfect 5e adventure has yet to be written, and a little birdie tells me Tomb of Annihilation won't be that either. Whatever you do choose from the 5e adventure books, you should get loads of cool ideas, and obviously no conversion to 5e will be required. However, you'll most likely need to do a fair amount of work filling in plot holes, avoiding gotchas, and so on, in order to make it logical and enjoyable.

So the most important thing is to choose a Campaign Theme that you are going to find interesting to run for a long time, and that your players will find engaging. Then you won't mind the work required to really bring it to life.

 

[ninjayeti]

PotA is very good, although it is primarily dungeon crawling so it can be a bit of a slog if your group is not into that. The early sections are non-linear, but if that is not to your liking it is easy enough to "nudge" the party in the direction you want by dropping the appropriate breadcrumbs when needed, so I wouldn't let this dissuade you from running it.

OotA is an the outline for a great campaign (and a great underdark sourcebook) but I think it really requires a lot of additional effort by the DM, especially in the second half, to make it work. If you are looking to run something as is, I would pass on this one.

SKT shines when it gets to the giant lairs, but these are under utilized, and the material up to then is mediocre.

Tyranny of Dragons has some ideas worth stealing but that is the best you can say for it.