D&D 4E Best 4e Adventure to Adapt?

[pemerton]

I think the shadowfell/abyss stuff is excellent, but doesnt fit the adventure. I had a lot of fun with that city and freeing of the chained guy. I think its a great setpiece for something, but it didnt feel connected with the adventure itself. But, very fun stuff and a great setting. My players pretty much roleplayed their way through most of it and it was a lot of fun. Worth looking at as a stand alone piece to something else.

This fits with my sense of it. I used the overland trek aspects of the module for a different scenario (crossing the The Barrens to Mal Arundak).

 

[Jhaelen]

I had fun with Thunderspire Labyrinth but ignored its framing and the larger setting and just used the various dungeons as mini-settings. I also think that both the Chamber of Eyes and the Well of Demons can benefit significantly from some minor modifications.

Demon Queen's Enclave is a fun setting. Again I ignored quite a bit of filler/cruft, and just focused on the key elements - the opening spider encounter, the mindflayers and then the drow (some befriended, some fought) and the rift to the Abyss - and then skipped the other-planar stuff and had the portal go straight to the villain's lair.

I think Thunderspire Labyrinth provides you with a pretty awesome setting that's worth expanding. The plot also basically works. It's mostly the encounter dynamics that I disagree with.

Demon Queen's Enclave, however, didn't do much for me. As written, it's a terrible adventure with 'staged' encounters that make little to no sense and don't encourage players at all to try to negotiate. And I didn't feel there was enough of a setting to make it worth the effort of completely rewriting it.

I would be curious to know how 4e encounters translate to 5e. I think older edition conversions are probably much easier.

Yup, that's exactly what I was thinking when I first read the OP. I'm not sure I'd even try to convert 4e modules. I think there's tons of modules for older editions that would be a lot easier to translate.

 

[pemerton]

Demon Queen's Enclave, however, didn't do much for me. As written, it's a terrible adventure with 'staged' encounters that make little to no sense and don't encourage players at all to try to negotiate.

My players beat up the Mind Flayers, but then negotiated with the mage (after "accidentally" breaking down his front door) and recruited the male fighters as allies (and thereby got a 1x/turn minor action AoE attack of drow hand crossbows). They didn't both trying to negotiate with the Lolth clerics or vampires, however - they were always going to be put to the sword!

 

[Eric V]

I am looking to adapt a 4e adventure to my 5e campaign (doesn't matter what level or setting).

I know there were some great adventures in 4e, particularly near the end of the run. I was curious to hear opinions, from both players and DMs, on which they found to be the best of these adventures.

In particular I have consistently heard four adventures named (though I am definitely open to any others, from Dungeon magazine, a third party, a fan creation, WOTC, anywhere). These four I have heard the most about are: Madness at Gardmore Abbey, Vor Rukoth, Gloomwrought, and Hammerfast.

My tastes tend to run more towards sandbox, but that's not a requirement.

So any thoughts? What were the best adventures of the 4e era, in your opinion? If you are familiar with 5e, then which adventure would both be good, and adaptable to 5e?

Madness at Gardmore Abbey is a great sandbox adventure, and fits in perfectly with the 5e rule system, IMO. You can't go wrong with that one.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Court of the Shadow Fey was also a good module, one of very few they did for 4e, and possibly the only really good 3rd party module ever written for the system. However, it was definitely a pre-MM3 sort of thing, so if you can find a copy you may want to up the monster damage some. Honestly though, its not really a module where fighting per-se is the object.

 

[Samuel Cole]

Buy Zeitgeist and don't look back.

 

[TerraDave]

Find the 4E Baba Yaga's Hut in Dungeon 196...and the original Baba Yaga's hut in Dragon 83* it is based on...your game, your life may never be the same afterwords.

We also did the 4E tomb of horrors, well both of them**. The RPGA conversion, and the book. The RPGA conversion of the original is a really good example of how to make the Tomb a little more forgivable, but not that much. You might need to level it up, which would not be hard. The book (which can follow the RPGA version, so don't level it up in that case) has lots of great ideas and details, which is what you want. At the same time, the 5E MM entries for lich, demi-lich, and so forth, will make it easier to put a 5E spin on things.

*The original by Roger Moore from the magazine. Not the 2E AD&D module, which is something else (or the related PF AP, though that could also be interesting).
**There are actually 3 4E ToHs: The RPGA conversion, the Book--which is a sequal, and the one published in Dungeon 213 to go with the re-release of the Original Ss in deluxe book format. This is actually a Next version--so less conversion needed--with 4E notes.

 

[diaglo]

Of Sound Mind Too by SammichCon Publishing written by award winning Kevin Kulp and art by world renown Claudio Pozas.

of course, it is still not yet released. so you'll get it when i do.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I have to chime in with Madness at Gardmore Abbey. One of the DMs at my FLGS ran it, and it's a really good sandboxy sort of adventure location where things can go any of thousands of different ways depending on the players. The only conversion "difficulty" would be

Spoiler

the Deck of Many Things cards, which have specific effects on various encounters. A little comparison with the Spells section of the Player's Handbook should make it clear how they can be converted, though.

 

[the Jester]

Demon Queen's Enclave, however, didn't do much for me. As written, it's a terrible adventure with 'staged' encounters that make little to no sense and don't encourage players at all to try to negotiate. And I didn't feel there was enough of a setting to make it worth the effort of completely rewriting it.

Wow, my reading of it was very different from yours. It's all about the negotiations, playing one faction of Drow off of another even while knowing that your allies will turn on you the moment it's convenient. I also really loved the sea of zombies in the Shadowfell.

In fact, I came into this thread to recommend it! If you emphasize the Drow politicking, it can be an amazing adventure.

I'll also vouch for the 4e Tomb of Horrors, but the monsters need updating to MM3 standards.