D&D General Tier Rankings of the main D&D Campaign Adventures

[MerricB]

I did this for fun recently... and possibly was a bit too generous. But, hey!

For those unaware of tier rankings, “S-tier” is the top, followed by A, B, C, D, and finally F.

S-Tier:
Lost Mine of Phandelver (original starter set)
Curse of Strahd

A-Tier:
Hoard of the Dragon Queen
Rise of Tiamat
Storm King’s Thunder
Tomb of Annihilation
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight (but haven’t run it)

B-Tier:
Princes of the Apocalypse
Out of the Abyss
Dragon Heist
Dragon of Icespire Peak (Essentials Kit)
Shadow of the Dragon Queen (I rate it a F as a representation of Dragonlance lore)

C-Tier
Dungeon of the Mad Mage (but I haven’t run it)
Rime of the Frostmaiden (but I haven’t run it)
Dragons of Stormwreck Isle (new Starter set; haven’t run it)

D-Tier
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk

F-Tier
Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus

The full article explaining a few more of my choices is on my blog, if you're interested.

Tier rankings of the D&D Campaign Adventures

Does not appear in this list. but will soon! For those interested, here are my tier rankings of the official D&D 5E campaign adventures. Some may be a little generous, but sort of match how hap…

merricb.com

However, considering your own experiences with the big campaign adventures from Wizards, how would you rank them?

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Zardnaar]

S. Strahd, Lost Mines.
A. ToA, Dragon Icespire
B&C Most of the rest
D. Dragon Queen, Out of the Abyss, Icewind Dale.

Maybe a bit harsh on the D ones but the rest of the B and C ones are better. They're not dog crap awful. Lot of mediocre/DM dependent.


Anthologies some individual adventures are A and S tier B overall for the most part whole book.

 

[MerricB]

S. Strahd, Lost Mines.
A. ToA, Dragon Icespire
B&C Most of the rest
D. Dragon Queen, Out of the Abyss, Icewind Dale.

Maybe a bit harsh on the D ones but the rest of the B and C ones are better. They're not dog crap awful. Lot of mediocre/DM dependent.


Anthologies some individual adventures are A and S tier B overall for the most part whole book.

Which Dragon Queen? There are two now!

Cheers,
Merric

 

[Paul Farquhar]

S-Tier:
My homebrew

A-Tier:
None.

B-Tier:
Radiant Citadel
Ghosts of Saltmarsh

C-Tier:
Yawning Portal
Candlekeep
Keys from the Golden Vault
Rime of the Frostmaiden

D-Tier:
Everything Else

 

[Enrico Poli1]

S: Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annihilation, Lost Mines of Phandelver
A: Descent into Avernus, Rime of the Frostmaiden, The Light Beyond the Wytchlight
B: Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Tales of the Yawning Portal, Dragon Heist, Dungeon of the Mad Mage, Storm King's Thunder
C: Out of the Abyss, Tyranny of Dragons, Princes of the Apocalypse, Dragon of Icespear Peak

 

[Stormonu]

Out of the ones I have been involved with:

S:
Curse of Strahd (always good, very strong in story, feel and danger)
Lost Mine (I even got my 70-year-old parents to play this one, this is everything D&D should be)

A:
Ghosts of Saltmarsh (a good mix of story and room for hexcrawling/exploration)

B:
Tales of the Yawning Portal (mostly solid conversions of good adventures from prior editions)
Tyranny of Dragons (has an old-school feel that sometimes feel out of place in being adversarial against PC success. Overall, it is NOT beginner DM friendly)
Shadow of the Dragon Queen (haven't run, there's some good scenes/encounters in it, but as @MerricB says, it's an F when it comes to presenting the Dragonlance setting)

C:
Rime of the Frost Maiden (there are some WTF moments about the environment, townships and backdrop, the adventure itself is not exceptional and feels more like a collection of encounters than a strong unified story)

D:
Tomb of Annihilation (really bad DM; after having read it now, I think if I were to run it I'd rank it a B, it's an interesting and clever reimagining of FR7 - Chult, Dwellers in the Forbidden City and Tomb of Horrors)
Phandelver and Below (haven't run it, but that it does a 90 degree turn from the original doesn't enthuse me to run it)

F:
Lights of Xarsis (one of the poorest designs I've seen in 5E for an adventure, everything about it is just bad or wrong - especially the stealth destruction of Dark Sun)
Descent into Avernus (partially played, the Mad Max rip-off for D&D just kills it for me, I expected a more Dante-style approach)
Dragon Heist (haven't bought but no Dragon's lair being robbed, so no interest in the adventure)
Dungeon of the Mad Mage (haven't run it, a poor attempt at redoing the much better boxed sets from 2E)

 

[dave2008]

Interesting how the same adventure can be an F to one person and an A to another!

 

[GuardianLurker]

From my experience, having played one Zero-to-Epic campaign in 5e:
Lost Mines of Phandelver (original): S
Tyranny of Dragons - Hoard of the Dragon Queen: B
Tyranny of Dragons - Rise of Tiamat: C
Descent Into Avernus: D (I raided it for the setting, but from what I could see of the adventure, that's what it's for.)

 

[Stormonu]

Interesting how the same adventure can be an F to one person and an A to another!

It's really helpful to know why someone rated an adventure the way they did so you can compare to personal preferences. Someone might give an adventure an A, for example, but they rated it that way because they added a lot of content to original adventure and the adventure structure really encouraged that. Or like me, an adventure run by a bad DM may have a lot of potential but doesn't work with a specific playstyle (the DM who refuses to allow characters to die and doesn't put the prep forward to read the encounters BEFORE they get to the table and then runs it incorrectly, as well as making a bunch of unrelated encounters to power level us for the next chapter).

 

[Burnside]

Also noting whether I've DMed, played, or just read the adventure in question.

Ranking the anthology/collection books separately, as I consider them to be quite a different kind of product from the campaign-length books.

S-Tier:
Curse of Strahd (DMed twice)
Lost Mine of Phandelver (original starter set version) (DMed many times)

A-Tier
Tomb of Annihilation (played)
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden (DMed twice)

B-Tier:
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage (DMed)
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)

C-Tier
Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus (played)
Out of the Abyss (cannibalized as DM)

D-Tier
Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk (read)
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (DMed)
Storm King’s Thunder (partly DMed, then gave up)
Planescape: Turn of Fortune's Wheel (read)
Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos (read)

Unrated
Tyranny of Dragons (only partially read; seems good)
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight (only partially read; seems very good)
Princes of the Apocalypse (haven't read)

Multi-adventure books, listed in order of goodness
Keys from the Golden Vault
Candlekeep Mysteries
Journeys through the Radiant Citadel
Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Tales from the Yawning Portal

As a DM, I really value:

• Ease of use/low prep
• Good maps
• Original ideas
• Attention to detail
• Internal plot logic (Curse of Strahd) and, failing that, plot holes that are easy to fix (Rime of the Frostmaiden)