D&D 5E Which WotC 5E Adventure Makes the Best Sandbox?

[John R Davis]

Probably tomb is the most classic sandbox, with SKT close 2nd.
I enjoyed both those
WDDH is pretty poor

 

[Parmandur]

I refuse to pay ridiculous craft beer prices for a 6-Pack. I drink PBR these days, $21.06 USD at Rite-Aid, its just the Budweiser that falls on the floor

You get what you pay for.

 

[R_J_K75]

You get what you pay for.

Yup, I get drunk for $20

 

[Parmandur]

Yup, I get drunk for $20

Beer has two purposes, enjoyment in drinking and enjoying the buzz. And, you get what you pay for.

 

[Reynard]

For fun, here are the regional sandbox maps from those books:

View attachment 294849
The Dessarin River Valley gets a nice.hex map, and is quite large and full of potential.

I love this map.

So which 5E modules have locations etc that are somewhere on this map?

 

[Parmandur]

I love this map.

So which 5E modules have locations etc that are somewhere on this map?

This particular area? Princes of the Apocalypse, Storm King's Thunder and Treasyrws if the Savage Frontier (a 2E Gold Box video game) are it. But List Mines of Phandelver us nearby enough that it has direct hooks between them.

 

[ECMO3]

Storm King's Thunder IMO

 

[THEMNGMNT]

To clarify, it's only the middle one that was commissioned for the 2014 DMG and thus is unpublished. The first and third maps come from Scourge of the Sword Coast, which Schley indicates in their respective descriptions.

I suspect that part of the original plan for the 2014 DMG was to include Daggerford as a sample starting town / region, kind of like what they did with Nentir Vale and Fallcrest in the 4e DMG. But I guess that got nixed somewhere along the line.


EDIT: Also, I'd just like to add that Scourge of the Sword Coast is fantastic. It's got a ruined castle overtaken by orcs, a noble house's hunting lodge overtaken by gnolls, a fortified dwarven temple/mine overtaken by duergar, and a riverside town overtaken by goblinoids. All are fantastic, dynamic locations that you could rip out and use in your own campaign. (All of them show the value of jaquaysing your dungeons as well.)

I should also point out that Storm King's Thunder covers the Daggerford area and, in fact, the status quo in the SKT version of Daggerford is based on the most common results reported by groups that played through Scourge and reported it in the D&D Encounters poll. (Likewise, the status quo of Baldur's Gate - with Ravengard in charge and the like - is based on the reported playthroughs of Murder in Baldur's Gate. I don't know how much influence playthroughs of Legacy of the Crystal Shard had on SKT or Rime of the Frostmaiden, though.)

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't intending to mislead. And I agree that it seems clear the intent was to make Daggerford a starting region, which would have dovetailed really nicely with the Next adventures. I still imagine an alternate reality where the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" was the "Lost Mine of Daggerford".

 

[pukunui]

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't intending to mislead. And I agree that it seems clear the intent was to make Daggerford a starting region, which would have dovetailed really nicely with the Next adventures. I still imagine an alternate reality where the "Lost Mine of Phandelver" was the "Lost Mine of Daggerford".

All good. And yeah, there are some interesting locations noted on that unpublished map that aren't on the Scourge maps. Would've been nice to know what the ideas were for those locations.

 

[Parmandur]

Honestly pretty surprising they haven't revisited Daggerford in an AP in a big way (aside from a little bit in SKT).