5e Modules- Hits and Misses

[purepolarpanzer]

I'm considering trying out professional DMing, and for my first foray out I think a module might be helpful. After DMing for over 15 years you'd think I'd have some experience with them, but I've never actually held an adventure module in my hands, let alone read one, so what modules do people recommend? Doesn't have to be official WotC content, but it certainly can be.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm considering trying out professional DMing, and for my first foray out I think a module might be helpful. After DMing for over 15 years you'd think I'd have some experience with them, but I've never actually held an adventure module in my hands, let alone read one, so what modules do people recommend? Doesn't have to be official WotC content, but it certainly can be.
What level are the players?
Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury are pretty good.
Lost Mines of Phandelver is decent, and since you are an experienced DM you can tweak it as needed.
Tomb of Annihilation can be anything that you want it to be. :smallsmile:

[purepolarpanzer]

What level are the players?
Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury are pretty good.
Lost Mines of Phandelver is decent, and since you are an experienced DM you can tweak it as needed.
Tomb of Annihilation can be anything that you want it to be. :smallsmile:

Nothing is set yet, so no level for them yet. I'd be advertising on startplaying.games, so I would set the level for whatever module I pick up. I would want to buy the adventure, read it over completely, and then advertise for it once I've got it down.

[J-H]

You may want to try shorter one-offs first before taking on a campaign.
There are a lot of modules on the DM's Guild... look for ones with 5+ reviews and high ratings. Be prepared to not use about 60% of what you buy. :)

This campaign log (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?635482-Westvault-Explorations-A-5e-episodic-dungeon-crawl-campaign-log) (mine) is run so far entirely on DM's Guild modules. I am 'brewing up a kython-centric location-based adventure using a map of Fort Driant (WWI/WWII fort), and I have a murder mystery written up for whenever they get back to the town... but generally it's bought modules with minor edits.

The Tomb of the Serpent King (https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/06/osr-tomb-of-serpent-kings-megapost.html) (OSR) was pretty easy to adapt to 5e and I enjoyed it, although they nearly died playing peek-a-boo with the chained basilisk.

[Dork_Forge]

I'm a paid DM running homebrew, but the modules are certainly attractive to get players at the table. Descent into Avernus, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, and Tomb of Annihilation are pretty popular. Lost Mines is a good one to start out with, but be wary of the lethality of the first encounter.

Paid DMing is less about what you run, and more about making sure you deliver an experience that makes your players satisfied at the end of the session ime.

[JonBeowulf]

Lost Mines is a good one to start out with, but be wary of the lethality of the first encounter.

Yeah, what's up with that? I ran it for a group of young teens thinking it would be a great intro to the game and had to tweak the encounter midway into it. They had a lot of fun later but that first encounter could have ended the game.

OP, I recommend staying away from Princes of the Apocalypse. It's a great story but a mess of a campaign. I've run it three times and each group got smacked hard because they pushed their way into areas they were not prepared for simply because they were in the neighborhood and there was nothing stopping them from going there. It's a linear campaign put in an open-world sandbox.

I threw some money at my local game store to get a few of the Original Adventures Reincarnated books by Goodman Games. I plan to run parallel BECMI and 5e campaigns, so I hope the books are solid.

[Amnestic]

Descent into Avernus [...] are pretty popular.

Personal preference maybe but absolutely skip DiA, for so many reasons. It frankly doesn't really 'work' at any stage of the adventure, with each part having fairly major flaws that would need to be fixed by a DM actively.

Core concept of "go to hell"? Cool+good. Actual execution? Really not. I can only imagine its popularity is due to the Baldur's Gate name attached to it and the idea of the module, rather than its actual quality.

[Bobthewizard]

If you like Eberron, I've really enjoyed running Embers of the Last War (https://www.dmsguild.com/product/278867/Embers-of-the-Last-War-BUNDLE) as a play by post campaign. I'm also running Oracle of War but so far it's not as great as Embers.

Make sure you read through the whole thing once. The bad guys in the first few episodes aren't the main bad guys by the end. It's all set in Sharn which gives it a fun noir feel. But there's enough pulp too with fights on bridges, sky coaches, trains, and a sky ship, a bank heist and a stage coach hold up. All while uncovering the plot.

[Dork_Forge]

Yeah, what's up with that? I ran it for a group of young teens thinking it would be a great intro to the game and had to tweak the encounter midway into it. They had a lot of fun later but that first encounter could have ended the game.


Getting ambushed by goblins is a pretty iconic kind of scenario, and it fits the story, but the reality of getting surprised by superior number in 5e is much, much harsher than the devs were expecting it to be.

Though, I think early play is flawed in general, any random creature can instant kill you, whilst that might be somewhat 'realistic' it makes for a poor intro to the game, which should be easier, not harder.


Personal preference maybe but absolutely skip DiA, for so many reasons. It frankly doesn't really 'work' at any stage of the adventure, with each part having fairly major flaws that would need to be fixed by a DM actively.

Core concept of "go to hell"? Cool+good. Actual execution? Really not. I can only imagine its popularity is due to the Baldur's Gate name attached to it and the idea of the module, rather than its actual quality.

Oh it's not a well written one at all, and the Baldur's Gate shoehorn is horribly done and overly lethal, it's just really popular because of the got to hell and get cool cars thing.

[KorvinStarmast]

... it's just really popular because of the go to hell and get cool cars thing. Not a bad hook, advertising wise. :smallsmile:

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Personal preference maybe but absolutely skip DiA, for so many reasons. It frankly doesn't really 'work' at any stage of the adventure, with each part having fairly major flaws that would need to be fixed by a DM actively.

Core concept of "go to hell"? Cool+good. Actual execution? Really not. I can only imagine its popularity is due to the Baldur's Gate name attached to it and the idea of the module, rather than its actual quality.

Though based on what the OP said (someone who is used to homebrew) I'd be tempted to recommend DiA. It has great ideas and concepts that with a bit of work can inspire a great experience. By contrast, something that's really well done, but maybe doesn't have the same cool factor I'd be recommending to a newbie.

Honestly I'd be recommending most of what I've experienced as a player and DM: CoS, OotA (which also takes some work, but is cool), GoS which needs some re-fluffing if you expect the mods to actually link together, and RotF. Dungeon of the Mad Mage was just too much dungeon for me, and Rise of Tiamat just handwaved most travel and exploration, so those would be out.

[Sparky McDibben]

Personal preference maybe but absolutely skip DiA, for so many reasons. It frankly doesn't really 'work' at any stage of the adventure, with each part having fairly major flaws that would need to be fixed by a DM actively.

At the risk of being a massive Alexandrian shill, his remix of DiA is the best I've seen.

[Amnestic]

At the risk of being a massive Alexandrian shill, his remix of DiA is the best I've seen.

I've not read it. Feel free to shill though, can you give a brief summary of what the remix does?

[Sparky McDibben]

I've not read it. Feel free to shill though, can you give a brief summary of what the remix does?

So here's the Remix in full: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/44214/roleplaying-games/remixing-avernus

It doesn't require any cost to get access to the web version, and I haven't seen the "at-the-table" files he makes available for patrons.

Basically, he takes the adventure and remixes it to bring out the juicy gameable bits to have more impact at the table. A bit of this is silly little canon stuff, but most of it is solidly useful (like how to handle Zodge so he doesn't have to threaten the PCs with murder, how to get the PCs to the Dungeon of the Dead Three in the first place, and how to structure story beats like the transition to Avernus). Even better, he tells you why he's changing the things he's changing.

The overall product is more fun to run, more fun to play, handles pacing and structure better than the original, and has a ton of really useful information wedged into the finished product.

[Unoriginal]

The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is a great module, IMO.

[Eldariel]

Misses:
Tyranny of Dragons (Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat): Simultaneously brutal and easy, railroady, "why are the PCs even involved"-sorta deal complete with disappointing climax. A good basis for certain things though.
Storm King's Thunder: The crux of the campaign is like two-liner quest hooks for random locations. It's a handy book to have if you are running a sandbox and your players just end up in FR places and you want to add some activity in there.
Descent into Avernus: Terrible early levels and basically a "write your own adventure" for the interesting bits.

Hits:
Dragon of the Icespire Peak: Far as low level adventures go, this is very simple but very functional with lots of D&D classics, sufficient brutality to expect some PCs to die, etc.
Lost Mine of Phandelver: Another decent low level adventure (though not without issues). A solid set of classics.
Tomb of Annihilation: A cool environment and solid set pieces for exploration and eventually a cool climax.
Dungeon of the Mad Mage: Okay, this is just a megadungeon. But it's a fun one. If you want a simple massive dungeon delve, this is definitely best 5e has to offer.
Curse of Strahd: If you want to run a noir-themed kinda-horrory (as horrory as D&D gets anyways) game, this works pretty well, especially with few basic tweaks.


Can't comment on Wild beyond the Witchlight and Rime of the Frostmaiden since I haven't yet played through them. Tales of the Yawning Portal has some nice basic set pieces or short adventures too, which I can recommend.

[Thunderous Mojo]

I am in overall agreement with Eladriel’s assessment.

Rime of the Frostmaiden and Witchlight are both well written products.
Saltmarsh also has some great adventures in it, with some excellent classic modules from early D&D, and some latter adventures updated from Paizo Dragon.

The Candlekeep Anthology was inconsistent. There are definitely some good bits sprinkled in the book, including entire adventures, but there is also a few failures as well. Overall, the book felt rushed, and did not hold together as a campaign.

It was a disappointment to me.

Strixhaven’s Adventure is just flat out: Horrible.
Reading the module is tedious, so much so, that I stopped reading it.

The only other official module for 5e that I could not finish is Storm King’s Thunder. Just reading the plot synopsis of SKT, tells you the plot is overly convoluted.

The Primer in SKT, about the Forgotten Realm’s North is well done, (though it draws heavily from FR products of yore).

I have only recently begun to read the Netherdeep module.
So far, it seems well done. The largest issue I see, is my group would mercilessly mock the name Netherdeep.

[Tawmis]

I'm considering trying out professional DMing, and for my first foray out I think a module might be helpful. After DMing for over 15 years you'd think I'd have some experience with them, but I've never actually held an adventure module in my hands, let alone read one, so what modules do people recommend? Doesn't have to be official WotC content, but it certainly can be.

Depends on the level, as others have asked.
If you're starting low levels, from the start, Level 1...
I recommend Lost Mines of Phandalen.
It's a nice module, with quite a few options.
Has combat and potential for RP (depending on you and the players comfort).
If it's people not familiar with D&D - I'd make it so not all the quests in the main town are immediately available.
It might split the party.
Make a few available, and "unlock" more as the party helps out.

[Chronos]

From what I've DMed:

Waterdeep: Dragon Heist was pretty good. The two biggest issues are that, first, there are a few spots that are insufficiently clued, so if the party misses the given clues, they'll end up with no idea where to go next, and second, there's a reward at one point that they might think is awesome, or they might just get mad about. I thought it was also a bit stingy with magic items, but it wasn't too hard to sprinkle in a few extras.

Candlekeep Mysteries is 17 mini-adventures, and they vary wildly. I haven't read all of them, but the ones I have read range from "Mostly usable, but needs the hook completely re-written from scratch" to "What the Hell is this garbage, and did anyone ever even contemplate the possibility of playtesting it, because about three seconds' thought would reveal that the entire thing is completely unusable".

From what I've played with other DMs:

Lost Mines of Phandelver was good, especially as a starter module, because it did a great job of hooking the players into the game. I can see how that goblin ambush could be brutal, but my party was vigilant enough to detect it before the trap was sprung, which made it much more survivable.

Dungeon of the Mad Mage is just a dungeon crawl for the sake of a dungeon crawl, with very little in the way of context or cohesion. It'd probably make a great computer game, and it might be good for your group if you just like mindless hack and slash, but if you want story, look elsewhere.

We've also done (at least pieces of) Rise of the Dragon Queen, Curse of Strahd, and Wild Beyond the Witchlight, but in those cases, I think the DMs changed enough that I can't really judge the quality of the originals (the changes weren't necessarily for reasons of quality, but to fit the modules to the party and our other adventures).

[Kane0]

Lost mine of Phandelver - hit
Hoard of the Dragon Queen - miss
Tales of the Yawning Portal - hits, mostly

[Rafaelfras]

I've DM'ed PotA and then went to SKT, where we currently are.
I liked PotA very much, the prophets make for very compelling villains. My advices if you are going to run it is, make then appear more, avoid the fire cult early or it can tpk your group, and try (it's open world after all so maybe you can't) do air for lats because Yan C Bin is the coolest prince.
I am on SKT now with the same party (had to adjust due to level) and we finally are getting relics to the oracle but I've spent 2 years on chapter 3, so careful there, run kraken gamble, and keep the plot going with the giants as a constant and looming threat

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I mentioned it above in a list of mods I like, but I'm going to underline Rime of the Frostmaiden. We're not done (level 8 at the moment) but I'm loving playing this. Our DM isn't having to do a bunch of work and is happy with the way it's put together. It's a really good balance of all 3 pillars and we seem to have about the right amount of freedom in how we attack challenges.

[Havrik]

The concept of paid DMing is really quite alien to me, but I guess I can see the appeal. My concern would be that introducing money into the arrangement massively changes some of the incentives and priorities about the session. Because people are paying per session, there's a big need to make sure that every session is a big showy set piece, and moves things forward. There's no room for those sessions where people just putter around aimlessly and don't make progress towards resolving whatever storyline mysteries there are. And, I wonder to what extent people's expectations are biased by shows like Critical Role, forgetting that all of those players are experienced actors as well.

My experience running Curse of Strahd has been very good, although I definitely have added a lot of elements that go beyond what's in the book, just reacting to what the players have done. We're almost at the end after about two years of play.

Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icewind Spire are both good. I ran parts of each of these as a one player game with my 10 year old son. There is enough variety that it rarely got bogged down, and it was actually not that difficult to scale the encounters down for one player and a sidekick character.

Someone upthread mentioned The Alexandrian for Descent into Avernus. He also wrote a great remix of Waterdeep:Dragon Heist, that turns the clumsy plotting of the book into much more of an urban sandbox in which all four of the baddies are actively involved, instead of the weird "pick a season" gimmick of the book. If I ever run this adventure I will absolutely use his changes; there's no doubt in my mind it would be a massive improvement.