Adventure books? The Trail of the Apprentice series (versions of the same adventures printed for PF and 5E) is an adventure set made specifically for young people and those who are total newcomers to the concept. It starts with a cliche "go kill bandit orcs in cave to recover goods", but then moves onto more exotic setpieces worthy of a "normal" adventure. Ends at like level 6.
I would never introduce anyone, let alone kids, with 5E. The entire system's math is bonkers and depends on DM throwing them advantage to make them not suck at things they're supposed to be good at. PF1 has its issues, but at low level it's totally controllable.
I went with the Trail of the Apprentice series in the Pathfinder system. That looks servicable for the purposes even if I will have to translate stuff.
I was interested in the old DnD stuff but availability is a factor there. I will look into these in the future though, as I am very interested in the older DnD Stuff for sure
Thanks for all the Input !
For classes, the following ones are in the same relative power level: Barbarian/Bloodrager, Bard/Skald, Paladin, Ranger (not dual wielding), Unchained Rogue, Alchemist, Magus, Slayer, and Warpriest. Vigilante, some Kineticist, Investigator and Mesmerist are also in this power level, but are far harder to play and build (especially the first two). Barbarian/Bloodrager has the lowest floor but most of them only need one or two points to not fail
Barbarian/Bloodrager: Does it have good strength and decent constitution, a two handed weapon and power attack? If yes, it will do fine no matter what other choices you make.
Bard/Skald: Lingering Performance is a must, otherwise dozens of ways to build it. Skald largely depends on the party being non-Barbarian melee heavy to be effective.
Paladin: Just avoid trying to play heal bot in-combat and its fine at killing evil things as long as its stat spread is fine.
Ranger: Some combat styles are better than others (archery>>>dual wielding), boon companion makes their animal companion a really potent melee character. As with all archery that will be in a party with melee characters, precise shot ASAP is a must.
Unchained Rogue: Basicly a fixed version of core Rogue. Avoid temptation to dual wield and its fine.
Alchemist: First discovery should be a bomb type that does damage other than fire (fire resist is relatively common) if you're not replacing bombs entirely to make them a melee beast. If you don't include crafting, replace brew potion with extra bombs (this is an official rule in organized play)
Magus: Spell selection can be a bit tricky, but aside from that it's solid.
Slayer: Like Ranger, some combat styles suck. Otherwise it's what Fighter should have been.
Warpriest: Don't force them into healbot and make sure they use their fervor to lower the action taken to self buff (that's their main gimmick). Otherwise fine. Arsenal Chaplain is largely a straight upgrade.
Fullcasters like Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard are either
extremely powerful or
extremely bad based on spell selection. I'm partial to replacing casting with
spheres but that may be a bit much to throw at new players. Don't be afraid to allow extra sources though (the first few hardcovers are the best, though the whole system's mechanics are legally free online), since the core rulebook holds the most broken stuff and the least viable builds
Not recommended classes:
Fighter: Hits things, but not even that well. Needs high understanding of system and otherwise obscure books to make work.
Monk (non-unchained monk): Hits things, but really bad at it.
Rogue: Not horrible, but many bad bits of design and 100% replaced by Unchained Rogue
Cavalier/Samurai: Most dungeons can't fit a horse
Gunslinger: Dependent upon bad subsystem
Inquisitor: Mechanically strong because it has a good spell list, otherwise the class is an unfocused clusterfuck of design that can't decide what it wants to do.
Shifter: Only class to never be playtested. Literally every other shapeshifting option in the system is better.
Summoner: Loves to slow down the game. Original version has no limits and devolves into big stick monster+support caster. Unchained version is nerfed version with more viable option variety, but still slows down play and very dependent upon being built well.
Swashbuckler: Takes a combat style that doesn't really work well in the system, and doesn't really fix it. Requires dumping two feats (weapon focus+slashing/fencing grace) to even be remotely playable.
Non-Kineticist, non-mesmerist occult classes: Aside from Medium, these are just worse versions of existing classes with some weird extra rulings. Medium is a special case of bad in that it was a class designed for flexibility but it went from ~50 options it could pick at will to 6 in the design phase, and those 6 weren't buffed to compensate, and it gets no abilities that compensate for feats and ability scores being fixed so it can't even use its flexibility.