D&D 5E What official adventure has the most interesting dungeons?

[MrHotter]

Hi there,

I'm looking for my next official adventure to buy. I use a custom world so I tend to just pull dungeons and maybe a town out of official adventures and work them into my world. That lets me have encounters that are created by people who have more experience with adventure building, but by taking just the dungeons I don't have to remember all the NPCs and behind the scenes information that I tend to forget once at the table.

My current campaign is a conversion of the 4E Essentials boxed games, but I find myself not wanting to use the battle maps as much as I was expecting now that I'm using 5E rules. I don't think I want to take the adventure past Harkenwold and I may not even use the Madness at Gardmore Abbey box that I never had a chance to run in my 4E game.

I have the Starter Set, so I'm already thinking of using the Wave Echo cave, but if there is are some much more interesting dungeons, then I'd like to hear what people think. The overall story arc is not as important to me as the 'fun factor' of the dungeons.

 

[wedgeski]

Princes of the Apocalypse has many small and large-scale dungeons with excellent maps. Are they "interesting"..? Yes, mostly, some more than others. Plenty of material for you to mine though.

 

[jayoungr]

Consider getting the playtest adventure Dead in Thay (available in PDF on Drivethrurpg). It includes a truly massive dungeon divided into multiple subsections.

 

[MrHotter]

Princes of the Apocalypse has many small and large-scale dungeons with excellent maps. Are they "interesting"..? Yes, mostly, some more than others. Plenty of material for you to mine though.

Cool, that's what I've been leaning towards. I don't know much about it, but if it has some Temple of Elemental Evil roots then I would hope that the dungeons would have some interesting features.

 

[MrHotter]

Consider getting the playtest adventure Dead in Thay (available in PDF on Drivethrurpg). It includes a truly massive dungeon divided into multiple subsections.

Wow, I checked out Mike Schley's map. It looks awesome, but it's a bit intimidating. I think my local game store has it on the shelf if I remember correctly. I'll see how much he's charging for it.

 

[pukunui]

I think my local game store has it on the shelf if I remember correctly. I'll see how much he's charging for it.

Unlikely, as it was only released as a pdf. It's possible your FLGS printed it out, though, I suppose. [It's also possible try have a hard copy of the dungeon map in poster size.]

The Rise of Tiamat has a cool dungeon called the Tomb of Diderius. It also has a green dragon's forest lair, and a white dragon's iceberg lair. PotA is the one with the most bona fide dungeons in it, though.

EDIT: I'd also recommend checking out the maps from Scourge of the Sword Coast. The adventure itself is fairly pedestrian (it's also pdf-only and is the prequel to Dead in Thay), but the maps are some of the best I've ever seen. Not all of them are real dungeons, but they're all unique, have interesting features, and can be reused quite easily.

 

[Motorskills]

I've always had a soft spot for the volcano interior of Drums of Fire Mountain (BECMI X8).

I ran it twice, hella fun running around in there, with the zillions of greenskins. With hordes of mobs being more of a danger in 5e I would tread cautiously of course.

 

[MrHotter]

Unlikely, as it was only released as a pdf. It's possible your FLGS printed it out, though, I suppose. [It's also possible try have a hard copy of the dungeon map in poster size.]

The Rise of Tiamat has a cool dungeon called the Tomb of Diderius. It also has a green dragon's forest lair, and a white dragon's iceberg lair. PotA is the one with the most bona fide dungeons in it, though.

EDIT: I'd also recommend checking out the maps from Scourge of the Sword Coast. The adventure itself is fairly pedestrian (it's also pdf-only and is the prequel to Dead in Thay), but the maps are some of the best I've ever seen. Not all of them are real dungeons, but they're all unique, have interesting features, and can be reused quite easily.

I like the 'not real dungeons' theme. My last bearded guy group devolved into a 'dungeon of the week' kind of campaign, so I need to mix it up some. I've seen the map for Floshin Manor and I loved it. I've also noticed that the WotC guys running that adventure is available on YouTube. I'll have to watch that to get a feel for the adventure.

 

[pukunui]

My group enjoyed Scourge up until they got TPKed by one of their own (a PC turned NPC) in Firehammer Hold.