Storm King's Thunder

Storm King’s Thunder is a massive, sprawling campaign that gives players a huge amount of freedom as they navigate a world thrown into chaos by rampaging giants. It’s one of D&D’s most open-ended official adventures, allowing groups to explore the Sword Coast, hunt down powerful giants, and unravel the mystery of King Hekaton’s disappearance. My group took nine months to complete this journey, and while it had some incredible highs, it also required a lot of DM work to keep things running smoothly. What Works Well: 🔹 A True Sandbox Adventure – Unlike many other official D&D campaigns, Storm King’s Thunder doesn’t force players into a rigid path. Instead, it gives them an entire region to explore, with multiple ways to tackle quests, form alliances, and confront the giant threat. 🔹 Giants Feel Like Real, Powerful Foes – Each type of giant feels unique, with its own culture, goals, and impact on the world. The sheer scale of encounters with these creatures makes every fight feel larger-than-life. 🔹 Memorable NPCs & Factions – Characters like King Hekaton, Iymrith the dragon, and the various giant lords create a rich political backdrop for the campaign. The Harpers, Zhentarim, and Lords’ Alliance also play key roles, allowing players to form alliances or make powerful enemies. 🔹 An Epic Conclusion – The final showdown in Maelstrom and the battle against Iymrith feel truly climactic. It’s a rewarding conclusion to the giant conflict that feels earned after months of adventuring. Where It Falls Short: 🔸 The Beginning Feels Disconnected – The campaign starts with the destruction of Nightstone, which has almost nothing to do with the main story. Many groups struggle with the transition from small-town adventurers to world-saving heroes. A strong DM can help bridge this gap, but out of the box, it feels jarring. 🔸 The Open World Can Be Overwhelming – While having freedom is great, the lack of clear direction can lead to aimless wandering. If players don’t pick up the right clues or don’t feel motivated to pursue the main quest, the campaign can drag in the middle. 🔸 Giant Encounters Can Be Brutal – The power scaling in this adventure can swing wildly. Some giant fights are devastatingly difficult, while others feel underwhelming. If a party isn’t well-balanced or smart with tactics, fights can become one-sided slaughters. 🔸 Some Locations Feel Underdeveloped – The world is huge, but not every region gets the same level of depth. Some major plotlines feel glossed over, and DMs may need to expand on certain areas to make them more engaging. My Experience Running It: My group spent nine months in Storm King’s Thunder, and it was one of the most memorable campaigns I’ve run. The freedom to explore, the massive battles, and the high-stakes finale were all fantastic. However, I had to adjust a lot of the pacing, giving players more direction and tying their personal backstories into the giant conflict to keep them invested. Final Verdict: Storm King’s Thunder is a fantastic campaign for groups that love open-world exploration, political intrigue, and massive battles. While its open-ended nature can lead to pacing issues, the rewarding moments of discovery and climactic battles make up for its flaws. With a good DM to smooth out the rough edges, this campaign is one of the best large-scale adventures in 5e.

Storm King’s Thunder is a massive, open-world adventure for Dungeons & Dragons 5E, taking characters from levels 1 to 11+ as they uncover a world-spanning crisis involving warring giants, ancient feuds, and the breakdown of the Ordning (the giants' divine hierarchy). This adventure feels like a true epic, featuring jaw-dropping locations, memorable NPCs, and a vast open world to explore. However, while the sandbox nature of the adventure is a strength, it also leads to a lack of focus, pacing issues, and a weak central villain—requiring a strong DM to make the most of it. The Good: ✅ A Fantastic, Open-Ended Sandbox – Storm King’s Thunder gives players a huge, living world to explore, featuring giant fortresses, ruined cities, icy wastelands, and hidden strongholds. The freedom of movement and non-linear design makes this a fantastic campaign for exploration-focused groups. ✅ Giants, Giants, and More Giants! – This adventure delivers on its premise, featuring every type of giant in D&D lore, along with detailed strongholds for each. Each giant faction has its own goals, culture, and conflicts, making them feel more than just oversized monsters. ✅ Incredible Set Pieces & Locations – Players will visit floating castles, storm-wracked islands, frostbitten glaciers, dwarven halls, and even the lair of a dragon. The adventure has some of the best large-scale encounters in 5E, giving players a true sense of awe and scale. ✅ Great for Player Freedom & Roleplay – Players can align with different factions, explore the world however they choose, and engage in diplomacy, combat, or intrigue. It’s not just about fighting giants—players can turn factions against each other, forge alliances, or manipulate the power struggles within giant society. ✅ One of the Best D&D Settings to Explore – The Sword Coast and Savage Frontier are richly detailed, giving the world a lived-in feel. The adventure includes plenty of side quests, hidden towns, and open-world encounters, making it feel alive beyond just the main plot. ✅ Multiple Paths to Victory – Unlike many adventure paths that lead to one final battle, Storm King’s Thunder offers multiple ways for players to solve the crisis, whether by defeating giant leaders, forming alliances, or confronting the true villain directly. The Not-So-Good: ❌ Disjointed Story Structure – The early levels (1-4) feel tacked on, as the starting town of Nightstone has little to do with the main plot. Once the giant crisis begins, players are given a huge world to explore but little direction on what to do next. Without a DM keeping things focused, the campaign can feel aimless. ❌ Weak, Underdeveloped Villain – The main villain, Iymrith, the ancient blue dragon, is barely present throughout the adventure. Unlike Strahd in Curse of Strahd or the Cult of the Dragon in Tyranny of Dragons, she doesn’t actively oppose the players until the final act. This makes the overall narrative feel weaker than it should. ❌ Some Areas Feel Rushed or Unfinished – The giant strongholds are impressive, but many are underdeveloped, offering little motivation for players to explore them beyond combat. Some key NPCs and storylines feel half-baked, requiring the DM to fill in gaps. ❌ Pacing Issues & Lack of Clear Direction – After the initial giant attack, players are given multiple options but little guidance, which can cause decision paralysis. Some groups may wander aimlessly for sessions, unsure of where to go next. ❌ Missing Content for Levels 5-10 – There is a huge gap in the adventure where players must reach level 10 before they can tackle the final battle—but the book doesn’t provide enough content to fill that gap. DMs must improvise quests, add homebrew encounters, or expand on existing areas to avoid a mid-campaign slowdown. ❌ Not a Great Choice for New DMs – The open-ended nature, loose story structure, and lack of direction make this a challenging campaign to run, especially for newer DMs. Without heavy prep and careful pacing adjustments, Storm King’s Thunder can feel unfocused or overwhelming. Final Verdict: Storm King’s Thunder is one of the best D&D 5E adventures for exploration, roleplaying, and worldbuilding, offering stunning locations, powerful enemies, and an open-ended structure that lets players truly shape the world. However, its weak villain, loose structure, and missing mid-level content make it feel incomplete. DMs must work hard to keep the story focused, enhance NPC motivations, and add extra encounters to prevent the campaign from dragging in the middle. If your group loves giant lore, player-driven exploration, and massive battles, Storm King’s Thunder is worth playing—but it’s best suited for experienced DMs who can fill in its gaps.

I've heard Storm King's Thunder referred to as a setting book rather than an adventure and I agree with that. There is a big part of the game that involves just travelling the Sword Coast and taking on side quests. There's lots of descriptions of towns and events, but what's missing is a sense of urgency. Overall really good adventure though.

I had a blast playing through this from front to back. Lot's of interesting treasures. challenges, roleplay opportunities, and interesting breadcrumbs.

This adventure is great as a way to get your players to explore the sword coast more than any other adventure that has been officially published for 5e. With giants being the main focus of the adventure, you will get to experience some large scale locations as well as see some crazy damage rolls that will leave your characters just as scared and excited. This campaign focuses for the majority of the story on traveling throughout the sword coast. Where the beginning focuses on helping a small town, traveling to a bigger town to save it, the third part of the adventure ends up being entirely focused on going from place to place being adventurers. This becomes both good and bad as the details for some locations can be a few sentences or a paragraph at most, and a lot of the locations have plot hooks rather than adventures attached to them. The areas that are more heavily outlined are interesting, but this part of the adventure benefits from a DM that is willing to add their own spin on stories. I used this area to explore character goals and backstory primarily, and as a way to introduce important NPCs that would come up later. The Second half of the book focuses more on the giants and solving the threat that they possess. Each giant has a dungeon set up for them, and each of these locations are very interesting and unique feeling. The downside to this is that the book encourages you to only have your characters visit a single giant fortress rather than exploring multiple. While this makes for a more concise and streamlined story, I couldn’t imagine not giving my players the opportunity to explore each of these locations. This does lead to the DM having to adjust difficulties of encounters, but it also gives a lot of chances to encourage even more exploring of the world. Even if you don’t use this book for the adventure, I would say it is one of the most useful books to have on hand just because of the locations and hooks presented for the entire northern coastline.

SKT is one of the best written modules for 5e. It tailors heavily to a table looking for an open world setting with a structured campaign arc. It starts off rigid, but quickly opens up and encourages exploration across the sword coast. Any GM looking to add character arcs for their players will find it incredibly easy to do so a third if the way through this game. After the world opens up, there's plenty of room to send the players all over the place- I've even sent players realm hopping during SKT. And none of it feels like it derails the game or otherwise takes away from the things it does well. The only thing I can say about SKT is that the ending can fall flat if a GM runs it as is. Some small re writes are needed to make the story work. I won't go into too much detail here to avoid spoilers, but I highly encourage GM's to read the entire module before running the game. Overall, SKT isn't perfect, but if you want to run a sandbox game without going through the effort of world building, SKT is for you. A beginner GM could easily run phandelver and this campaign after, since it does most of the heavy lifting for you. Beginner players would get a kick out of this game, as it has everything that DND is all about; Dungeons, Dragons, Giants, Lords, Knights, Peasants, Soldiers, and so on. Veteran players will love this game because you fight a lot of giants, and they hit hard and present a formidable challenge.