If you’ve been playingDungeons & Dragonsfor a long time, there’s a decent chance that you want to do something that challenges your skills, whether that’s as a Dungeon Master or as a player - maybe even both. Difficult campaigns and adventures aren’t new to the world of Dungeons & Dragons.
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However, they certainly aren’t something you run across super often when you’re looking at the different adventure modules you can try out. True, most adventure modules work really well to get new people into Dungeons & Dragons, but sometimes, they also work well to provide a lower effort, but still challenging campaign, than homebrew would.
10Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus
Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus isn’t bad because it presents difficult but well-balanced or intentionally unbalanced encounters for players. It’s bad because it’s unbalanced (but not intentionally) and requires the Dungeon Master to put in far more prep work than it may be worth to make the adventure work well for the players.
There are tips and resources online for how to do it, but if you’re a first-time Dungeon Master, the prep work is going to become overwhelming very quickly, and you’ll likely end up with a few TPKs to deal with.
9Tales From The Yawning Portal
Tales From the Yawning Portal is specifically designed to present veteran players with a demanding challenge. The encounters are intentionally unbalanced, which forces veteran players to utilize all resources they have at hand and then some if they want to win.
Of course, as a Dungeon Master, you could always make this adventure a little bit easier for your players, but that would go against the spirit of its creation. It offers a handful of different adventures that you’re able to try out,which will suit shorter campaignsor one-shots better than long-form campaigns.
8Out Of The Abyss
If you play Out Of The Abyss as designed, given that it’s a survival horror, it’s going to be punishingly difficult - especially if you’re under-prepared (regardless of if you’re a player or the Dungeon Master). It’s one of the few adventure modules that will take you through a cohesive adventure through the Underdark, but with that comes a lot of challenges.
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If you are a new Dungeon Master, you might want to avoid this one for now unless you find a way to remove some of the more “unpleasant” survival elements.
7Princes Of The Apocalypse
Princes of the Apocalypse isn’t necessarily a difficult adventure module because of the encounters it sets up for players, but because of its sandbox nature. It requires you, as the Dungeon Master, to flex your skills a little bit and do a lot of preparation prior to the session.
If you aren’t comfortable with your skills as a Dungeon Master, you might want to avoid this adventure because it requires quite a bit of skill to guide your players without necessarily railroading them. Understanding this module and reading it through at least once is a necessity.
6Rise Of Tiamat
Rise of Tiamat could, more than likely, be harder for players to work through, especially in some of the more “dire” encounters. However, the difficulty of Rise of Tiamat isn’t for the players but for the Dungeon Masters who decide to run it for their group.
The module is a little bit unorganized, which means that you’re in for a lot of prep work and planning to try and make a more cohesive and streamlined story for your players. If you want to make this campaign work and feel more exciting for your party, it’s going to require a lot of work behind the scenes.
If your party isn’t that great at roleplaying or just generally doesn’t like it, you can look into something like a dungeon-crawler adventure. Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage will present that perfect longer dungeon crawl that may end up presenting a serious challenge depending on what you do and where you go.
Because it’s a dungeon crawl, there’s no guarantee that certain encounters will happen, which means that this could end up being incredibly easy or incredibly difficult. That is, assuming that there’s no tinkering behind the scenes by the Dungeon Master.
4Tomb Of Horrors
Although Tomb of Horrors is technically included in Tales from the Yawning Portal, it deserves a mention all on its own because this adventure isn’t designed to be challenging to the player character but to the player themselves.
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It’s not even necessarily challenging in that you need to be creative with your solutions in order to make it through the adventure, but it’s challenging in a way that makes you almost want to rip your hair out with frustration. Prepare to spend a long time on this adventure, whether you’re a player or a Dungeon Master, because it’s going toput your skills to the test and force you to become better.
3Icewind Dale: Rime Of The Frostmaiden
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden can leave a lot of plot threads that are either too difficult to follow or are just left unanswered if you aren’t doing much work on the Dungeon Master side. It presents a difficult challenge for players in the encounters and in adventuring, but for Dungeon Masters, you still have to deal with the sandbox-like nature of this adventure.
you’re able to gradually tie plot threads together to create a more cohesive story, but it will take some work, andyou’ll likely be in for a longer campaign.
2Tomb Of Annihilation
Tomb of Annihilation is alright in the beginning stages of the game, but as you progress, it becomes significantly harder. You’ll need to have a lot of knowledge of dungeon crawling to make this work if you’re running the game as the Dungeon Master.
Whether or not you’re a player, you should be prepared for the chance of some TPKs because the word “annihilation” in the title isn’t there for flair. The encounters and dungeon are difficult to traverse through, and it’s not for the faint of heart or for reasonably new players.
1Curse Of Strahd
Curse of Strahd can be incredibly difficult in the early stages of the game, especially when you and your party are just figuring out what you’re doing. The encounters are well-balanced but difficult, even as you progress through the game, and it’s fairly easy to run given that the module has everything parsed out fairly well.
It still requires experience as a Dungeon Master to help your players work through, but given that Curse of Strahd is hailed as one of the hardest adventures to come out recently, you likely won’t have new players who are going to be at the table, so things should theoretically go a bit more smoothly.
