D&D 5E Which was the most recent Wizards adventure you consider a classic?

MerricB · Mar 3, 2025

I love published adventures. I really do. But I don't love every adventure, and the last few (several?) Wizards adventures have been disappointing to me.

But I don't demand perfection from adventures either. Most of the adventures we consider classic have flaws. But they have enough in them to really speak to a lot of DMs, and for those DMs to overcome whatever flaws they have, and to get really, really excited about running them.

So, here's my question to you: What's the most recent official D&D adventure that really speaks to you, that you'd be prepared to put on the "Classic" roster?

Covid disrupted my play of the adventures, so there's this gap in my play of them (Rime, Witchlight being the big two in the gap). But for me, the most recent that is "Yeah, this is worthy of our time" is Tomb of Annihilation. Which, given that's 2017, is a LOT of years earlier. (I have problems with it, but it's an adventure that I really enjoy as well).

Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen just misses out. Its version of Dragonlance lore irritates me greatly, though I mostly like the adventure content.

So, what's your pick?

Cheers!

Chaltab · Mar 3, 2025

It's a bit hard to say, since to me a classic suggests it has withstood the test of time. I don't know how the future will regard 5E adventures but my first instinct was honestly to say Madness at Gardmore Abbey.

pukunui · Mar 3, 2025

I haven’t had a chance to run most of the more recent longer adventures. I’m currently running Witchlight and an episodic campaign incorporating the Golden Vault adventures and some Infinite Staircase adventures.

For me, the 5e ‘classics’ are Curse of Strahd, Storm King’s Thunder, and Tomb of Annihilation. I’d also include Scourge of that Sword Coast as an honorable mention since it’s technically a D&D Next adventure.

Chaltab · Mar 3, 2025

I will say there's a lot I like about Descent into Avernus, but it's also got a lot of flaws so I'm not sure I'd call it a classic. A diamond in the rough maybe. Superboy Prime threw retcon punches, but that adventure takes a retcon machine gun to Zariel's history.

MerricB · Mar 3, 2025

Chaltab said:
It's a bit hard to say, since to me a classic suggests it has withstood the test of time.

The test of time is already here for a lot of those adventures! It's over 10 years since Tyranny of Dragons, for instance!

Parmandur · Mar 3, 2025

Witchlight, Light of Xiraxys (tge Spelljammer campaign), and Turn of Fortunes' Qheel (the Planescape Campaign) were good: the latter benefit from being shorter, I'd say.

Most of the best recent stuff, however, has been the small modules in the anthologies. Those have been on fire: Candlekeep Mysteries, Radiant Citadel, Golden Vault, and Infinite Staircase all have great stuff (even though Infinite Staircase are classic Adventures, they are changed significantly: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is a totally different Adventure).

TiQuinn · Mar 3, 2025

Personally, I would go with Tomb of Annihilation for sure with Dungeon of the Mad Mage as a near miss. If DotMM had a better finale, and didn't need a good deal of work on its last couple of levels, I'd have to said it was a slam dunk. But, I also know a lot of people are very down on DotMM too.

cole1312 · Mar 3, 2025

DotMM is a weird one because I think it's the only truly great 5e adventure, but it also has obvious problems. There's a little booklet on DM's guild, old school guide to dungeon of the mad mage, that fixes pretty much every problem I have with it by making it way easier to restock. Makes it feel more lived in, it's a good little add-on.

ToA on the other hand feels really empty, I love hexcrawls but it's not a good one. A few changes really help it, but it's not as easy a fix as mad mage.

Every other 5e adventure, I actively don't like. All of them have huge glaring flaws that leave me not wanting to play them, and the idea of dming them is... no. Never.

TiQuinn · Mar 3, 2025

cole1312 said:
DotMM is a weird one because I think it's the only truly great 5e adventure, but it also has obvious problems. There's a little booklet on DM's guild, old school guide to dungeon of the mad mage, that fixes pretty much every problem I have with it by making it way easier to restock. Makes it feel more lived in, it's a good little add-on.

ToA on the other hand feels really empty, I love hexcrawls but it's not a good one. A few changes really help it, but it's not as easy a fix as mad mage.

Every other 5e adventure, I actively don't like. All of them have huge glaring flaws that leave me not wanting to play them, and the idea of dming them is... no. Never.

That's a great point - there were a lot of really good third party products on DMsGuild for both of those adventures that really made them sing.

cole1312 · Mar 3, 2025

TiQuinn said:
That's a great point - there were a lot of really good third party products on DMsGuild for both of those adventures that really made them sing.

ToA has like a whole extra adventure add-on that fills quite a few holes, gives NPCs more to do, and takes you to higher levels. Which is neat, but really the thing I'd like most for it is filled hexes. I know not everything can be wolves upon the coast but that should be the ideal for any hexcrawl.

D&D 5E Which was the most recent Wizards adventure you consider a classic?

MerricB

Eternal Optimist

Chaltab

Legend

pukunui

Legend

Chaltab

Legend

MerricB

Eternal Optimist

Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him

TiQuinn

Registered User

cole1312

Explorer

TiQuinn

Registered User

cole1312

Explorer

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