D&D General Top 5 Best Non-WotC adventures?

[DarkCrisis]

I can't actually list 5 because I've either run official adventures or played a different game.

With 5.5 rapidly approaching I'll probably give it a go, but what are some good non-WotC adventures.

Let's avoid remakes of old adventures and stick to stuff that wholly a new idea.

The only one that I've ran that me and my players loved was Odyssey of the Dragonlords. Greek themed adventure and I loved all of it.

Also shout out to Rise of the Drow. It's presentation is great but it's more of a campaign world book with an adventure tacked on. The adventure starts out pretty grand but it gets real linear unless the DM wants to put in a lot of work with the campaign world side to flesh it out. Which the DM is expected to do.

 

[payn]

Kingmaker from Paizo.

 

[Maenalis]

Kingmaker from Paizo.

Came here to say the same thing.
And Ptolus.

 

[Lazybones]

Caverns of Thracia from Judges' Guild. A 5e version is coming out this October from Goodman Games.
I'll always have a soft spot for Rappan Athuk from Necromancer Games (I wrote a whole story hour set in it), but it definitely requires calibration of player expectations before running it.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Caverns of Thracia from Judges' Guild. A 5e version is coming out this October from Goodman Games.
I'll always have a soft spot for Rappan Athuk from Necromancer Games (I wrote a whole story hour set in it), but it definitely requires calibration of player expectations before running it.

I can't imagine what a 5E mega dungeon is like. I remember when Rappan first came out and how it was so deadly, but that was D&D more or less. Like wouldn't the "Superhero-ness" of 5E water it down? OR does it have special rules to give it back more of it's edge?

 

[jayoungr]

I can't imagine what a 5E mega dungeon is like.

Kobold Press published one, The Scarlet Citadel. I haven't played it, though, so can't comment on whether it belongs in the "top 5" list.

 

[Voadam]

I have run a couple from Legendary Games that were pretty fantastic, The Murmuring Fountain and Fiddler's Lament (with some modification about the original fiddler), but they were the 5e versions of things that existed in 1e Pathfinder.

I own but have not run a bunch of 3rd party 5e original modules. Stuff from Petersen Games comes to mind as 5e original stuff I think would be fun to run. The 5e Adventures in Middle Earth adventures looked interesting to me too.

 

[Odysseus]

all the stuff from arcane library.
And ENworld war of thr burning sky, and zeitgeist

 

[Voadam]

I can't imagine what a 5E mega dungeon is like. I remember when Rappan first came out and how it was so deadly, but that was D&D more or less. Like wouldn't the "Superhero-ness" of 5E water it down? OR does it have special rules to give it back more of it's edge?

5e can still be deadly, running against encounters designed for higher level characters can beat down PCs a lot so what level you tackle things at sets that pace. Also for a megadungeon I think you still just press on until your daily resources (spells, hp, powers) are depleted. It just is generally easier in 5e to recover all your hp after short rests (HD) or long rests.

There is a 5e version of Rappan Athuk.

 

[Reynard]

I can't imagine what a 5E mega dungeon is like. I remember when Rappan first came out and how it was so deadly, but that was D&D more or less. Like wouldn't the "Superhero-ness" of 5E water it down? OR does it have special rules to give it back more of it's edge?

Kobold Press published one, The Scarlet Citadel. I haven't played it, though, so can't comment on whether it belongs in the "top 5" list.

The Scarlet Citadel isn't really a megadungeon by the standard definition of the term. it is just a big dungeon. And it isn't very good.

5e can still be deadly, running against encounters designed for higher level characters can beat down PCs a lot so what level you tackle things at sets that pace. Also for a megadungeon I think you still just press on until your daily resources (spells, hp, powers) are depleted. It just is generally easier in 5e to recover all your hp after short rests (HD) or long rests.

There is a 5e version of Rappan Athuk.

We have been running 5E Rappan Athuk for a while and it is a slog. 5E lacks the necessary focus on resource management to make delving into RA until you have to back out very fun.

I don't think 5E works well for megadungeons at all, and actually works best for "5 room dungeons" and other shot delves IMO.

A Shadowdark version of RA might be interesting, tho...