Ranking ALL the Dungeons and Dragons 5e Adventures Worst to Best
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- What's the Best Dungeons and Dragons 5e Adventure? Now that Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage are out, let's rank all the D&D 5th edition adventures from worst to best.
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Your thumbnail says adventurers and not adventures
where is the Guildmasters guide to ravnica?
We bought two! Check out our stream if you get a chance!
@@RoguesTwoForms not an adventure
D&D isn't a video game with dice.
Video games are D&D with a computer painting the minis and rolling the dice.
And way less freedom
I really wish I had a computer to paint the minis
Yes thats what fire emblem basically is
Hell, Morrowind literally had invisible dice rolls determining whether attacks hit or not, so you've got a point there.
"Let me tell you something: MMORPGs are f-ing garbage. They take vibrant, creative people and turn them into drooling zombies, sitting in front of their monitors jabbing F1 until their f-ing hearts explode. Take your character sheet and go back to Farmville!"
so what you're saying is Storm King's Thunder has three *giant* problems?
underrated
Nice
You need to leave right now.
I swear my life to you. Cleric, Paladin, Warlock, I serve you
I hate you with the entirety of my being
#8 is a heavy dungeon crawling you said???
*aggressively add to card because brothers love explore and hitting stuff more than roleplay*
If you're into dungeon crawling, it's great! My group is partway through it, and so far we've been having the time of our lives exploring/utterly destroying everything the campaign has been throwing at us. :)
my siblings are also like this and I'm trying to run hoard of the dragonqueen with them XD
(5 players standing over the table, chanting)
MURDER STUFF
MURDER STUFF
MURDER STUFF
This reminds of the old Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale games. You got Baldurs Gate if you loved roleplaying, or you got Icewind Dale if you were like me and just wanted to kill monsters and explore ruins.
First (second) 5e book I bought, along with LMoP, based on nothing but the name
Perhaps, after Rime of the Frost Maiden is released, we can get an update on your rankings. ;)
I agree I’d love to see a new one! I’d like it if they did tyranny of dragon for both RoT and HotDQ. Make sure you include Dragon of ice spire peak and LMoP
Deja vu lmop is in here
Curse of Strahd is really getting a run for its money with Rime of the Frostmaiden. Personally, the setting is better than Curse of Strahd
Nick I doubt I’d go that far. RotFM is pretty good. I like the more open ended and sand box nature of the first half and the very ending.
I still think that my favorite was Tomb of Annihilation.
@Tsuki roll, shit; it's just total shit.
Gotta give my dm credit here, he was able to combine storm kings thunder with lost mine to make my all time favorite campaign. It fixed all the problems, with it not only fixing the start of the campaign and the transition into the giants section, but he also changed up the black spider to become a recurring villain who was working alongside Iymrith to then become an even better villain after Iymrith was slain. Credit where it's due, that campaign still gets brought up most sessions because of how intense the betrayals were at the end
I would love to know how your DM wove previews of Storm King's Thunder into LMoP (e.g., how the Black Spider related instead of tying to typical Drow/Drow deity things, the significance of that mine/forge to SKT in terms of plot, and how the whole green dragon sideshow in LMoP would relate at all if it did to SKT).
Can you explain how they went about this? I'm trying to do something very similar
I am trying so hard to find a way to skip the nonsense that is the sandbox part (Savage frontier charpter)...
So glad you ranked Phandelver so high. Sure, Strahd might be better in an overall way, but I think that as an introduction to D&D, Phandelver is darn near perfect. In fact, the whole starter set is just perfect, imo.
Yeahr whilst CoS is in my opinion is the best adventure out there it's not a great introductory adventure for DnD neither for players or DM's as it is quite different from what 5e is supposed to be.
H
Wish I had a better DM so I could actually enjoy it.
Yeah Lost Mines was pretty much my first dive into DnD (only had a 3hr 1-shot prior just to find the feel of the game). It's difficult to follow up just how engaging it is as a new player.
Only thing I wished is that it had a few more pages to flesh out the side quests a little more and give a solid reasoning for Glass Staffs betrayal of the Lords Alliance (I just had it that he was under the effects of a Geas spell which is a little bit of a cop out)
For easy skippage between the adventures (done on mobile so could be a bit iffy):
0:44 - Spoiler warning stuff (You should probably watch this to be safe)
1:00 - 11
3:40 - 10
5:41- 9
7:10 - 8
9:17 - 7
11:06 - 6
13:00 - 5
14:47 - 4
16:16 - 3
19:18 - 2
21:03 - 1
22:53 - Closing Notes
#############
Below are the same time stamps but with the names of the adventures, you have been warned.
#############
0:44 - Spoiler warning stuff (You should probably watch this to be safe)
1:00 - Hoard of the Dragon Queen
3:40 - Princes of the Apocalypse
5:41 - Tales from the Yawning Portal
7:02 - Dungeon of the Mad Mage
9:17 - The Rise of Tiamat
11:06 - Out of the Abyss
13:00 - Lost Mines of Phandelver
14:47 - Dragon Heist
16:16 - Storm King's Thunder
19:18 - Tomb of Annihilation
21:03 - Curse of Strahd
22:53 - Closing Notes
Not all heroes wear capes.
Bless you friend!
No descent into Avernus?
Thank you
You missed the Essentials Kit/Dragons of Icespire Peak.
yea my shelf is getting pretty heavy *cries in pdf*
dude free pdf's are the way you need to go
The Trove Has Saved Me Like 300, 400 Dollars
@@thebean2991 I've not been able to figure out how to use The Trove
@@andrewmitsialis-souster3321 use anyflip bro
Can you like download all files at once from the trove?
I loved LMOP right up to Wave Echo Cave itself - I had completely redesigned the dungeon and changed the big bad by the time the players got there. BUT, that's why it's so effing brilliant! As an introduction to D&D, it's also an introduction to DMing. I'm not a new DM, but one who'd taken a 20+ year hiatus from RPGs. Until LMOP, the last time I'd run a D&D game was AD&D first edition. My 13 year old son begged me to run a game and I picked up the starter box to make my life "easy". By the time we finished LMOP, the group was ready to move seamlessly to a homebrew campaign set in the Forgotten Realms and leveraging material in other books (I steal from all sorts of sources.)
And I was back in the hobby 100%, crafting terrain, painting minis, buying books, going to cons with my son - the whole thing. So, taking into account its *purpose*, that's my case for LMOP as #1.
"angry comment about how you read (dungeons and dragons 5E module) wrong and probably ran it wrong you (insert profanity) if you were only at MY table and ran the module EXACTLY HOW I DID you'd understand (insert dungeons and dragons 5E module) is actually the best and you're wrong you (insert different hyperbolic profanity)"
did I miss anything?
You forget to insult his mother
@@Parodox306 oh, silly me, how could I have been so careless?
Your comment has been rendered null and void as it does not contain the word Nazi.
Also you need ( insert party here) and (ubsurdly complex home brew rule with 60 lines of text explaining in x2-8)
don't forget to use profanity after every other time you use you.
I played D&D for the first time yesterday. The most amazing game ever. Definitely more engaging and compelling than video games
Wait until you play Numenera :-)
@@trainerred6582 What's that? TTRPG?
It’s so much fun! I’ve only been playing it for a few years but I love it!
@@poycixyz4614 Wow, this was 2 years ago. It's a fantasy-scifi tabletop RPG. I nowadays prefer to run Troika to make things faster since they both cover the same genre
@@poycixyz4614 You should watch the video about, what is Troika? , here on TH-cam. It helps getting your head into whimsy tabletop RPGs in general
I'm very surprised that many found Lost Mines so challenging, especially Klarg. My group(I was a player) had a very memorable fight with him.
Klarg: KLARG IS INVINCIBLE
Wizard: magic missile
Barbarian: axe
Rogue: daggers
Cleric: guiding bolt
klarg was not invincible
I just ran this fight with my 8yo daughter. She was a rogue and I played cleric. Klarg tried to run away but the cleric was able to grapple Klarg and hold him.
"While you are holding him, I want to run up your back, onto his shoulders and cut his head off with my sword!"
Rolled nat 20s, and with sneak attack, she easily did just that. She was so proud to do something so cool lol
I don't think that Lost Mines is challenging for anyone that has played D&D before, but for a group of new to first-time players, it can be very easy to get in over your head.
I ran it recently with 3 brand new players and 1 person who had played a few other sessions before - just the knowledge that Heavy Armor Master was a thing was enough to make my ladder player almost invincible to 90% of the encounters.
My wizard went down, but that was unlucky. Other than that, we led a goblin revolution against Klarg
My party's Ranger gutted Klarg and fed him to his wolf.
My players made an ambush using that little hole and destroyed him in two seconds
PSA: DINOSAURS BELONG IN DND JUST AS MUCH AS LOVECRAFTIAN BEASTS OR SHAKESPEAREAN FEY!!
YMMV, but I've always felt the same way. I find that players always want to summon or wildshape into dinosaurs because their cool, but if I'm running a gothic horror game, or medieval fantasy where exactly did you see those dinosaurs to even know that they exist. If they are built into the setting from the ground up (like Chult), it's an easier pill to swallow.
If you're running a gothic Ravenloft-type setting it's hard to think of a way to logically say that a Karate Master monk, Radighast-type Druid, and tons of other things are unlikely to make sense either. It doesn't mean they have no place in DND. Think of Bloodborne, most of those monsters could be considered reflavoured Dinosaurs.
@@aaronapley258 True enough. It's personal bias due to the creationist version of my world building. Ancient times were the times of titans, giants, and dragons. Not dinosaurs.
@@MrJerks93 Ancient times had dinosaurs for us. So I don't see how that would be so far fetched. World cooled, so dinos stayed in warmer climates! But I agree when a mid level elf druid wants to wild shape into a beast they've never seen, in an area that doesn't have that beast, it seems absurd.
Yeah nope
yawning portal works better for home brew games than campaigns that tie you to forgotten realms
It really shines as just a list of good sidequests rather than as its own adventure.
Yeah I prefer looking at the dungeons and mixing it in a homebrew
Geoff Churchill I agree. I am using them as mini campaigns for my game. Like your guild got a contract to find 2 missed sibling from this town. (sunless Citadel)
Geoff Churchill I personally used Sunless Citadel as an intro to DnD for some new players doing level 1-3, and then connected the Gulthias tree into the plot of Curse of Strahd and they found themselves in Barovia after Sunless Citadel. The dungeons contained in Yawning portal are amazing and great. They say you “can” run the book as a campaign, but it’s just an anthology. Idk why you would judge it as a campaign.
@@freeofkings wasn't that the point?
*sniffs because the first campaign I’m running is HotDQ*
Mine too and it hurt. My players where like "why are we going to deal with a dragon?" They tried to go back on the road.
Look at it this way, it can only get better from there.
Ralph Dennis true
I read it as hot dairy queen.
My players just finished Tyranny of Dragons. Honestly Hoard of the Dragon Queen was pretty bad as far as being on a railroad track the players couldn't get off of without derailing the campaign. Rise of Tiamat was better but only just. If your players aren't heavy on RP the forced council sessions are murder on the group.
curse of strahd was the first game i ever ran as a DM and i loved every second of it and would run it again in a heart beat
Same here, and it was probably the best game I've ever run
Same but for lost mine of phandelver (well technically my first was before that and was hoard of the dragon queen, but we only did 1 chapter and everything was hard, confusing and sucks
it's one of the best adventures. if not the best. that or tomb of annihilation. Dungeon of the mad made has some good levels too
The next campaign I plan on running is curse of Strahd
My first CoS session is Wednesday, wish me luck!
Cody presents content so well. Natural flow, relaxed speech yet with just enough inflection and expression. Definitely would do well with nearly any subject matter and a crash course for preparation.
Thanks Matt. That's very kind of you to say
@@Taking20 Not bad for a ginger...
Yeah, I recently found the videos & I've been really impressed.
Great list, I largely agree with everything on here.
I ran Storm King's Thunder and I had a LOT of issues with it. I think my main problem overall is that the players never really have a reason to care about helping sort out the giant problem. Like, yes, there's the general sense of "giants are going to run amok a destroy everything" but that's not a solid motivation for the players to do anything about it. And when the story pivots from "destroy all giants" to "help the giants" it also comes across as "why should the players be the ones to do this?"
I think the main issue is that players do not get a good sense of how the Storm Giants are actually good guys who should be helped. And that the drama occurring at court, which is central to the entire plot of the game, isn't revealed until 80% of the way through the adventure. There needs to be a Princess Leia/R2D2 moment or something to really hammer home to the players that they should be assisting Princess Serissa. The Power Score blog had a solid recommendation as well, which is to give players a history with Harshnag/Serissa/Iymrith as part of their background. I did this and it helped provide motivation for the characters to seek out these characters. They go "Hey, I hung out with Princess Serissa when I was younger and she was extremely nice to me! If she's in trouble, I want to help!"
Oh man. Great input here.
Back when I first started playing D&D (1e) the party had a sense of being knights of the round table. That is to do good for good's sake and any rewards they earned were just dressing. One of my groups had never played D&D and the other group started out playing AD&D as first time players. These people are a lot more mercenary LOL. They always need to know "What's in it for me?" so I can understand your issues with the SKT module. I haven't looked at that particular module in any depth as yet but from your post, I'm not sure how I could get my players to buy in to it.
@@brigittedarcel1498 I think it's less of a mercenary problem and more of a "seriously? The world is ending and we're the ONLY ONES who are doing anything about it?" Problem.
I'm having that exact problem right now running it. My players are infinitely more interested in the side quests. It's overall a good book with it's encounters and side quests, but I'm struggling to keep my players interested in the main plot hooks.
@@littleratfella6857 You'll want to make sure Harshnag is cool and that he really emphasizes that he likes Princess Serissa and that she's a trustworthy person. I really like making finding Harshnag be the primary goal of chapter three. People up and down the Sword Coast know he's a good and heroic giant. It makes sense for a lord of a major city to encourage the players to find him since he might know what's going on.
Also, if your players are interested in the side quests, that's not a bad thing at all. You can make them care about the giants by having the giant threat keep screwing with their side quest victories. You can get the players to be like "You know what, we've been personally impacted enough by these giants that we want to take action."
When I played Lost Mines my group ended up kidnapping a goblin from the first encounter. We all immediately loved him. His name was Rarflenaargen.
Edit: The DM named every other goblin something very generic (Bill, Sally, Joe) but apparently Rarflenaargen's parents were very traditionally goblin-like
We did something similar. A goblin was painting, we asked if the painting was good, so the DM rolled a performance check. Nat 20.
Needless to say, Vincent van Goghblin went places
my party adopted/kidnapped a redbrand ruffian
My players adopted one at the Goblin ambush. I wasn't ready for it and I had to come up with a name on the spot. I named him Krot.
But then left him outside of the hideout. He has run away when the players returned. But I made a crappy painting on paint for them as a memento that the goblin left.
drive.google.com/file/d/1qX4QqovdCCSgPvvmVlnp4Jy7XSalADM5/view
My players adopted the little goblin that was a slave of the redbrand AND transformed that place in THEIR hideout, and the goblin is now their maid lmao
@@igormartins2701 Yeah, Rarflenargen tried to take the redbrand goblin too. We kidnap a lot of creatures, but that one didn't stay lol
Im not gonna lie, I kind of like that idea of Starting with Mines and moving into Storm King
That’s what I’m thinking! How did it go?
@@scottashcraft7652 it actually turned out really fun. Just the transition between the two was a bit bumpy. If you can find a good way to blend it your players will love it
@@scottashcraft7652 That's what i did...
TBH, not great for me.
New DM, all new players, so a bit of railroading or more confined locations with points of interest is very welcome for all parties.
While the setting is fun and the initial giant attack after Phandelver is fun to both play and run, the chapter afterwards basically is "Here is all of the Swordcoast, go figure out what the giants are doing"
For new DM's there's over 100 locations that are sometimes only described in a few sentences, which is hard to prep if you don't know where your players want to go and youre not that great at improvising scenes.
For the Players, theyre guided towards exploring the land and figuring out more, but theres neither a clear goal they can see, or an intrinsic character motivation apart from "giant attacked us", plus if theire not so good on RP without input, travel can become a massive boring
We never got through to the juicy bits, i started a different approach after a session, but the character motivation and so the campaign died.
Until I'm better at improvising off a few ideas, and my players have a better understanding how much freedom they'd have in RP and helping the world shape, it's a pass for me.
Altough i must say, the story is an excellent read, i will for sure run it in the future, until then, Strahd and plenty of one-shots are on my list.
I love Out of the Abyss, however it has given my group some serious DNDPTSD...the survival portion was so harrowing to my group that their characters refused to follow up the second half of the adventure. The mental scarring is so bad I have two players who will get up from the table if there is a hint of Underdark.
I think thats how my game might end, they're approaching Blingdingstone now and man are they ground down. I had one player ragequit early on when their fav NPC died, too...
This makes me want to run the mod even more
You did good
I’m just getting started. I can feel some tension in the players as they flee through the abyss. They didn’t retrieve any of their equipment, so I’ve been playing up a lot of dangerous spelunking and dangerous environment. One character was down four levels of exhaustion and desperately needed to find a place to bed down. They did have a lot of fun with the Rocktopus, which I decided to up with some awakened psychic powers. I’ll need to throw they some respite at some point, but never let them feel completely comfortable.
My group did not run into too many problems, but by happenstance we got all our equipment and we had two rangers of the Underdark. The wandering around felt a little long though. My group are all veteran players so that made a big difference, I think.
YES. Excellent video, Cody! This is a great resource for those wondering which one to buy. I often have people ask and I only have personal experience with about half of them. I'll point them in this direction from now on.
Wow thanks Nate!
@@Taking20 Could you do an update plz? With the new adventures?
Currently running Curse of Strahd.
I almost made my DM shed a tear the other day while my character nearly broke down under the weight of something.
It's a good adventure.
Watching your video starting off I had no idea what the premise for mad mage was, but after hearing your explanation I can't wait to get my hands on it. I live for the dungeon crawl
I remember my first time playing Tomb of Annihilation back in 3.5 and when we encountered the sphere of annihilation the paladin entered it and the DM handed him a note telling him what happened and then another player who wanted to know what the note said also crawled into the sphere
I know this is super late, but that's actually Tomb of Horrors, Tomb of Annihilation is a new 5th edition full adventure that takes inspiration from the older ToH, but while it's still deadly, it's quite abit more fair.
Sees video.
Corey mentions HoTDQ is the worst and Strahd is the best.
I instantaneously approve.
You mean Cody?
@@codypatton2859 Yeah, that's what he said...Cody. :P
My group's DM actually took your advice and ran Phandelver to lead into Storm King's Thunder and it was soooooo good. I only found this video after the fact and realized where the idea came from so, thank you. It was great.
Cade, The halfling Barbarian that a giant gave emergency flying lessons to, does not agree with your opinion that these new abilities are great :P
Love the list! But also - thank you for including the images in the upper right. You made this video real easy to watch without spoilers and it's appreciated!
Tales of the yawning portal was not released as a campaign. It could be done. But that was not the intention. But a good way to run it is to use the yawning portal as a part of it. The owner starts telling you a story and you roll new characters for every one of the tales. It was realsesed to be somewhat of a supplement to have one offs or inserts into your own campaign. OR you COULD run it as a campaign. That is how i saw this book released.
Eric Simoneau I agree. I started the group in oakerst to start the campaign, had my own plot to my own homebrew campaign, and have the group a reason to want to get the healing fruit from the sunless citadel. I saw it as a break from homebrew planning to run a premise dungeon in my campaign, not its own campaign.
I really enjoy this video. Your passion for the hobby is palpable. Keep up the good work.
I’m just over here watching this as a new DM like.
“Oh HotDQ is that low, wow, I thought it might have been good. I guess ToA will be down near that too, since I like it too.”
Oh.
I know this is months late, but ironically I’m running HotDQ and CoS at the same time. CoS strait up ruins hotdq when you realize how well it is put together. I almost cancelled the hotdq game over it. Now I’m just going to trim the fat and rush them to rise.
Look, I liked it too, it wasn't terrible. But it was written while the the core books like the PHB and MM didn't actually exist and kept changing the drafts. So they were trying to make an opening book to launch right after the game, but they had to keep stopping to redo the encounter and setting and such constantly because "wait what do you mean assassins aren't cr 2 anymore the 4th level encounter had 4 of those guys. Ok it took some doing but we reworked it to be slaa- SERIOUSLY, AGAIN?"
Like the book isn't unplayable, I ran it recently and my players adored it...after I took some time to polish it. It was just released on a time crunch while the rules kept changing so it wasn't exactly Kobold Press's best work.
@@maromania7 there's a lot of polishing imho, too much to make it good. CoS has been a dream to run comparatively. So much so that my HotQ group just merged into my CoS group.
Tales of the Yawning portal wasn’t really intended to be a full campaign. It’s suggested as an idea in the book and the adventures are organized in order of starting level. But they didn’t try to make it a “campaign”. I personally don’t think it should be on this list as all. I thinks it’s obvious that this is just a collection of old modules. There is no story continuity because there is no attempt at an over arching story. And they don’t try to make one.
I used it as sidequests for both, Dragonheist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage.
Yes. Yes yes yes. Even as I'm writing this comment, Hoard of the Dragon Queen comes up at the bottom. I just finished the penultimate session of running this campaign for several months. So, so, so many problems. I ended up changing everything to make it exciting.
I had to do the same for my players. By the end I was coming up with loads of comical ways to kill off every kobold to avoid having yet another monotonous encounter against them.
I'm HATING it right now and can't wait till it ends.
Deathblade I have changed a bunch as well we are at the caravan part
Rise of Tiamat is worse than HODQ, nothing in it makes sense and all the plot points are gone or now, completely unimportant.
I've had to make some changes also. did not like the fact that you let the bad guy go just to fight him again in the beginning. Kill and move on. LOL
I’m new to D&D and have started dming games for some friends and family. Thank you for the video! I would love an updated version of this video as I’m sure there have been many adventures written since then
For our Dragon Heist campaign, our DM included ALL the villains into the story and it worked so well that I thought it was standard to have them all searching for the treasure.
LOL - Love the sass at the beginning, Cody. Sometimes folks just don’t get jokes and sarcasm at times... Agree about PotA. Only played about 1/3 in a group, and we went back to homebrew content. I’m really pumped to run Curse of Strahd for one of my groups; it looks really cool. Glad to see it landed in first place.
I’ve been running Out of the Abyss and you’re 100% right about the PC issue. It got bad enough I had to start arranging for some NPC deaths lol (it worked well with some of the twists I put on it) but it really did make it drag on. Using the lingering injuries table from the DMG spiced things up though so that made for some fun little shenanigans
Need a new one of these, with the new modules! Loved this so much, man!
Just watched you video and I am so glad to see that curse of strahd ranked number one. While I know you had a falling out with roll20 I use it and am pleased with it and my players enjoy it also. I have picked this as our next adventure to tackle. Keep up the good videos and I'll keep watching them.
That was a great and useful round-up of all these campaigns! I'll add these 3 bits, since I own and have read or played these 3 books:
1. Tales from the Yawning Portal - while it is fine to keep old modules in circulation, I agree that these adventures leave something to be desired and may not provide a lot of high level entertainment. I say that because since many of these are from the early days of the game, they are written in an incredibly primitive adventure design style, namely the Against the Giants series. No plot, no character developments, just some giants in their lairs. Adventure design has come a long way since then, and this one has not aged well.
2. Princes of the Apocalypse - I played in this one, and at no point in my rise from 1st to 7th level did I ever discover why I should be giving a shit about what is going on. Yes, the weather events were sometimes bad, but when I encountered some of the elemental cults, they just wanted to be left alone to do their thing, which I couldn't tell was really harming anybody else. I peppered every NPC I came across with questions trying to find plot hooks, and didn't turn up anything that made me feel like this was an important quest to go on. And sweet Lord, there was way too much dungeon crawling involved, it felt like such a grind.
3. Out of the Abyss - the concept for this is fantastic, but it had problems of execution. First problem was that by the end of the campaign if the PCs are successful, nobody in the upper world has noticed a thing was wrong, except Bruenor who thought he heard something. The demon princes coming to earth should be a world-shaking event signaling the End Times, but even when traveling around the Underdark, they barely made a blip of difference. Second problem was the confused lay-out of the book, in that it took me until over half-way through the book before I found out what was going on with the story. That's bad. Third problem was that there was too much crammed into the book, and I was serious with my players that this campaign would take 1-2 years to play through. I really liked this book and changed things to suit my needs, but it sadly did deserve its place in your list.
With the new adventures now out, and Tyranny of Dragons getting a revised released, and another possible module coming out later this year, I’d love to see an updated version of this countdown.
I’m pretty new to D&D (played a campaign of pathfinder and home brew D20) I’m about to DM my first game with a group of all newbies...and we are running horde of the Dragon Queen. I’m now worried but also excited. Thanks for the informative video! Definitely subbing!
I love this video four years ago. I wish there was a new one for all the stuff that has come out recently. Your review videos are by far the best out of all the D&D TH-cam channels out there.
I bought the starter set using the link in description after watching your video. I've never played D&D but I've always been curious. I'm hoping I can get my friends to try this with me.
How was it? Thinking of grabbin it
22:02 "NPCs and PCs"
I had to listen to that a few times to get it.
Goddam you are very right
THAT's what he said!
Hahaha thanks!
That definitely makes more sense then what I thought I heard "... the NPC's NPCs"
I have been playing D&D for a while. I started with the starter set and it is my favorite memories of D&D. I love the adventure and the way I played it with my friends.
Thank you for not spoiling much of Curse. we are ABOUT to start it in a few weeks as our first real foray into 5E after being knee deep in Rise of the Runelords and Reign of Winter the past few years in our pathfinder group. We've run the beginning of the starter set this past weekend to get our toes wet and it's been a LOT of fun and not that bad learning 5E. Our DM for this told us to essentially... "get our whips and red wine ready to do our best 'what is a man?' meme" I'm stoked that we are doing this even more now!
I got to run Mines of Phandelver. The funny thing was, we were going to be short a player for a two sessions, so we decided that this starter module would be a good "short term" filler while he was out. We were so wrong about that. We generated random characters and ran with whatever; we were short on healing, so I plucked the Cleric with the lowest INT from the pile to run as an NPC and also pass on to our missing person "if we were still playing" (snort) when he got back.
There was an absolutely CRAZY amount of material for what was billed as a starter module. It's a starter CAMPAIGN. Now, a big difference I had as a GM between the experience you're relaying, is my players aren't noobs, they're 30 year veterans, and there were plenty of places where they were beating the crap out of the encounters as written, and I had to toughen things up on the fly, or wrote in some extra challenge the night before... sometimes both. Regardless, I heartily endorse this; it does deserve a solid place on your list.
I picked up the Starter set about a year ago after not playing for 20-25 years. It was an amazing and solid start.
Actually, I found that it wasn't hard to run Rise of Tiamet without running Hoard of the Dragon Queen. I started my adventurers at level 8 and had the adventurers save a Harper agent in the first area. After that they continued the campaign as normal for the adventure and things worked out pretty well.
Thanks for this! I was wondering where to go next, as my family and I --my wife, daughter, and me--just started playing the boxed set 'Phandelver' together. I am running the game, but I haven't played D&D since I was a kid: 1st edition AD&D. We're at the entrance to Klarg's cavern, but I decided to allow one of the goblin guards to befriend the group. I hope the party survives with the little guy's help!
starting curse of strahd next week and now i’m so excited!
"I'll put a link to it down in the..." I really, REALLY, expected to hear "doobly-do". No offense, but it's what my brain filled the line in with lol...blah,blah,blah "pavlov's dog" blah.
That aside, GREAT list! I actually completely agree with your listing as well. Especially for Hoard, which my group is slogging through now. The showdown with Cyanwrath and Mondath in the caves in Chapter 3 was a serious letdown.
So was rescuing Leosin as well come to think of it. Our DM actually had him refuse to be rescued, only to "magically" show up the next morning in Greenest. I called crap on that one almost right away, but there was just a shrug from across the screen.
Matt Colville watcher i see.
@@souvenirspices5812 Peace. Out.
@@trequorHe is writing a rule book for 5th edition DND and it should come out in a month or so, when he is done with that his channel should be back on track with running the game.
@@trequor Not unnecessarily, his twitch is fairly active compared to his youtube channel, his twitch viewers will probably keep his channel going if anything.
Man I'm happy that my first adventure (still running) is Curse of Strahd. No worries I didn't spoil myself I just wanted to see where it would rank. It really is great fun so far
Loved this review guide. Thank you!
This video has been immensely useful in a moment of deciding which adventure to use for my groups return to D&D after over a decade since the last game.
We ordered 2 Starter Sets from your Amazon link! We hope it helps! (Also shared your link to others for them to buy from their as well!)
You: "I hope you get the sarcasm and satire this time, I had angry comments from people complaining how I said D&D is a videogame with dice. If you are one of those commenters, you are appreciated."
Me: I see what you did there, and I approve
you're a life saver, I was preparing HotDQ because the first act was so open and full of ways to deal with it, I was sure the rest had to be like that and was already taking notes before finishing the book. I guess I'll just take the ideas of use them for something designed for the party.
This was alot of help, I went deep into dnd, I have a friend that was a DM and played a few sessions, and I loved it, never played before and he introduced me. Unfortunately cause of covid ect. I haven't talked to him in a long time so I figured I'd start my own dnd group and im new to DM. Thanks alot now I know where to start and what to buy.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. As a new DM, this is exactly what I needed. I have access to all the books you mentioned but had no freaking idea where to start. I had heard Storm King's was good and I was going to start with that. Now I'm going to start with Phandelver and move into it.
Personally, I hate vampires and feel that whole genre has no place in D&D, so I'll never really run that stuff. I'm glad there's alternatives though.
Pretty glad I found this video! I'm recently a new DM, and I dont know much about the prewritten adventures. I'm currently having my players go through Lost Mine of Phandelver (and they're pretty new players as well), and I was actually planning to have them go through the Tyranny of Dragons campaigns, cuz I thought fighting against dragons would've been really cool.
But seeing how linear and back and further tedium Dragon Queen seems, I'll gladly skip it. And since I'm doing LMoP first, I think it would be perfect for them to jump into Storm King's Thunder, with the suggestion to skip that beginning town and having them already be at level 5. Thank you so much for this video!
I picked up Curse of Strahd a couple months ago. I still have to finish reading through it and wrapping my head around how some of the things work (especially that damn castle floor plan!), but the depth and detail of it so far is sooo good!
The first town of Storm King's Thunder was my favorite part of that campaign. I used that for two separate groups with two different systems and campaigns.
I was a little surprised he was so down on Nightstone.
The reason I enjoyed Lost Mines so much is because of the group that played it with me. Every single member of the party was just amazing (with the possible exception of my character) and in the first session our group ended up accidentally(?) funding the villainous(?) schemes of a buisness-minded goblin who has since become one of the primary characters at the forefront of all of our campaigns.
Very nice overview. I was waiting for CoS. I ran it 2 times, for very different groups and it's awesome. Pure fun and thrills.
This really helped me as I’m beginning to be a dm and want to figure what would be of a good campaign. Thank you!
So my party did Lost Mines of Phandelver
They beat the wolves in area 3
The Cleric made an insight check a ground a chimney
Everybody succeeded their acrobatics and athletics check
They all got suprise on Klarg and the 2 goblins and the wolf In the area
Klarg died before he could even make a MOVE because my party killed thim
The only party member that got unconscious was the rouge but she quickly got saved
They were all lvl 1 by the way
Same happened when I ran it
Same except my group tamed the wolves first
Happend to my party
@@TheScottishKayaker
Can I have your group plz
WTF DUDE?!?!?!
It’s a good list! #1 is my favorite adventure I have ever played.
My group ran Lost Mines in our jump to 5th edition and what a memorable experience. We still always bring up stories of that adventure. The only other 5e module we've ran was ToA which was pretty fun, but my group demanded a return to the homebrewed world I ran in most of our 4e campaigns.
Thanks for your honesty on these campaigns. I bought both box sets and I'm running my 2 sons through those then going to buy some good pre built books before I go into some home brew stuff.
I am hoping one of these campaigns is a conversion to the Giant Series from days of old. G1, G2 & G3 were a lot of fun back in the day.
22:03 "The NPCs n' PCs" LOL
Seriously though, great video!
I'd like to run Tomb and Strahd.
I got the Phandelver Starter Set for my niece, too 😁
A Red and Pleasant Land leaves Strad scared and hidding under his bed. Alice in Wonderland meets Dracula wonderful goodness.
Thanks for this! I'm a long time DnD player/DM, but very new to 5e (thank you global-pandemic-forced-confinement!). I had never used a pre-made campaign, always home-brewed, but was curious. This helped me figure out which one to start out with and I got Storm King's Thunder this week. I'll still run the first part, as my players are mostly new to DnD so they'll surely like it anyways. Tomb of Annihilation is next on my list.
Thanks again!
GREAT VIDEO THANKS! My experience: After returning from a near 30 year hiatus who just jumped right in ... I found Lost Mines great and easy - then we jumped to Storm King's and it was terrifying and brutal at first...after I bought a helpful pdf on the module and a few sessions in I am starting to get my DM legs.. but the two were way different. Both great stories but way different in what they do or dont do for the DM.
Counting myself lucky, since the first 3 adventure books I bought were CoS, SKT, and ToA. I have yet to run them though, because I've always preferred homebrew worlds and settings, for both sandbox and linear adventures... and my current players are working their way through with my current homebrewed adventure. If I had to run any adventure on this list soon, it would be OotA, #6, because my 'big crime' city has a sewer system which drops even further into my material plane's underdark.
Bought exactly the same set ;-) (one at a time) but got a few more (TftYP, DH) and are going to buy OotA and DotMM. ;-) Curse is awsome but it requires a lot of work from DM to play Strahd correctly and to get the mood right.
dreddbolt I plopped SKT into my home brew setting, changed the town names and a few other things with minimal difficulty. Because it takes forever for the plot of SKT to reveal itself, it’s essentially just throwing rampaging giants into a pre-existing campaign, something that takes the heroes by surprise as they pursue their other goals. SKT really only takes centre stage when Harshnag joins the party, so don’t delay, disrupt your setting now lol
Congrats on 100k
I am a reasonably new DM and I myself have played some of the lost mines, and it is a really good adventure, sadly I haven't ever been able to finish it because my players didn't have enough time 😢, I also wanted to say this video was really helpful, so thank you!
Im new to D&D and I am keen to be the dungeon master and i really feel like this was very insightful. thank you so much
sweet haircut and beard man
Right, actually starting look like an adult
don't let the dad overcome you you gotta swerve and get a monster logo buzzed in your hair or something
I am so sorry for skippimg through this video a lot but I have my first campaign on sunday and just wanted to see what kinda stuff my DM picked and I really dont wanna get spoiled for the other campaigns.
Great content thouuuugh ♡♡♡
Great review man!
Horde of the dragon queen and rise of Tiamat ,were written were rules were not 100% nail down
Totally fair point!
Rules are not a requirement for good story. And they certainly were written after it became standard for maps in a book to be presented with North pointing Up...
Could you do an updated version of this with Ghosts of Saltmarsh? As it just came out? I would like to see where that one sits in this rating.
And now, as of the time of the writing of this comment, also include Descent Into Avernus please!
Most likely somewhere in the middle.
I have ran the first three missions so of GoS, and it is group of mini adventures that a bit more well connected than TotYP, but will still take some work to fill in the gaps. The adventures are not the greatest, but they are enjoyable and we are having a blast!
I randomly picked up the starter set at gamestop. Now I have a ruler, graph paper, poster cards, and all kinds of apps, I haven't even played a game yet, I've literally had more fun learning about it. Thanks!
Out of the Abyss is my favorite, but your comments are spot on. There are issues, especially with the NPCs.
Storm King's Thunder is my second favorite, but I agree it needs a different start.
You have them in the right spots.
Strahd was an amazing module. I always preferred horror and gothic air to my campaigns and really helps with my immersion in the campaign.
Am in the middle of Curse of Strahd, and it's very fun. I had my character, a Goliath Barbarian, fall to Strahd when my friend taunted him as he was in the middle of choking me to death.
Update @alex
did a great job ranking them and sharing your opinions in a well-thought out manner. even if i didn't quite agree with some rankings, i agreed with your reasoning on why. the only negative i would have to say on this video is not enough content in the non-spoiler sections, and the spoiler warning sections just pop in with no warning. that's fine for me, i'm familiar with the adventures, but some people might end up watching this video muted, just so they can see the rankings.
Watched this after our second session of a LMoP campaign, my first experience with D&D. Loving it so far, playing as my Warhammer Saurus warrior (Fighter), I got the first kill of the entire campaign! The amazing thing was when our Warlock managed to deceive the bugbear leading the group of goblins that had taken the dwarf guy's friend (forge the names OTOH, I have them in my notes), and with a lucky few rolls, we avoided that entire combat. Our DM said that was the first time running this campaign where the party avoided the combat entirely.
Obviously fast forwarded through that part of the video to avoid spoilers, but will say I am definitely looking forward to what happens next! I hope it involves some mines that were lost!
"Lost mines of phandelver"
Me: YESSSSS MY MCELROISSSSS
ABRA KA FUCK YOU
"You are so, SO appreciated. Thank you!"
I think that's corporate lingo for, "Consume excrement and expire."
Thank you AGAIN for this video that Ive come back too several times... thanks a million. Trying to find something for my 10th level characters to start.
I remember the first time I played D&D, I did Storm King's Thunder. I was just captivated by it.
I love how you call my group "heroes" while describing Rise of Tiamat.
The two "leaders" of are group are an evil delusional cleric and a gnome psychopath (but in a good way). We don't know how it works, but for some reason, we want to defeat Tiamat.
Im waiting for a re-edition of Dark Sun, *insert where is dark sun,pointing to the hart meme*
This was very helpful. Thank you
Thanks for this great video. I was curious about some dice I had with A's for 1's. Now I know where they come from. :-)
Highly agree with the top 4 picks. Curse of Strahd is even great of newer DMs who still want to try giving players a sand lot experience. They'll have a great setting to explore, while at the same time it won't be super overwhelming on the DM to keep track of.
I was considering sending my PCs on TOA after they finish the starter set. Do you think Curse of Strahd would be better to start with a 5th level party? I'm a pretty new DM.
@@Drakematter Well, I'd start by seeing which setting your players would prefer. An exotic trek through jungles and temples or more of gothic horror setting. Definitely want something they'll really be interested in. For a new DM I'd say Strahd might be the easier route. Plus, it's easier to pull them into the adventure. They could literally be anywhere when mist descends upon them and they are whisked away to Barovia
@@liquidhazetv8756 Great, thanks for the input. I'll get their input on their destination preference for sure. We just started moving through to Phandelver for the first time, so maybe I'm getting ahead of myself xP
@@liquidhazetv8756 is curse of strahd easy for new players and DMs? I'm a new dm and finished running lost mines for a party of new players. They like the setting of curse of strahd but I believe it would be hard for them cause it's very sandboxy, and inexperienced as they are, they might not know how to progress. What do you think?
@@user-eg7bi2ux4o A bit of spoilers here, but the plot of Strahd mostly revolves around the characters survival and desire to escape Barovia. To that end, there are fortune tellers who can drop hints and point them in the direction of artifacts needed to defeat the vampire. Some more side stories will be going on, but the main objective for the PCs will be tracking down those artifacts, whose locations are randomly determined during the fortune telling readings. So essentially the module encourages players to explore Barovia as much as they want. Just a tip, though. Areas each have their own specific CR levels. Like not far from the first village they arrive, which is CR 3-4, there is a location that is CR 6+. So it's easy for them to wander into a place and be in over there heads. It's ok to warn them of this as well through NPCs. Maybe even tell them beforehand that they might run into something too difficult but it's ok to walk away from it and level up some. This danger heightens the sense of a struggle for survival and desperation to defeat Strahd.