D&D General Highest level PC you've achieved.

[Zardnaar]

Overall, my primary 1E character was my highest, but I technically didn't start with the character (it was one of the DMs, who gifted it to me so I could play in the current adventure). He had run it from level 1/1 Druid/Thief to about level 5/7 when I took it over, then played it for about 5 years until she was level 36 Thief (Druid capped out in 1E, but I don't remember at what level).

Assuming you don't count that one, my highest level character was a 4E Warlord I took to level 30 in a Dark Sun campaign. The DM basically ran us through the novels as the protagonists.

Other editions:
2E: capped levels for an elf fighter/mage, but I don't remember what the level limit was (mage was mid-teens)
3E: highest only got to level 15 before it collapsed under itself
5E: got a dwarf cleric up to level 18, which was a ton of fun

12 fighter 15 mage 2E iirc. Optionally higher based on ability scores or double xp iirc.

 

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

4E: Finished Scales of War at Level 30, Goliath Warden but I genuinely do not remember how long we played for. It was a few years. (Albeit there was one point we jumped a few levels to wrap everything up, and I took three months off when I got a fellowship, played a human soulknife for a few months when I got back, but switched back to my Goliath). That's the only campaign I've been in that never fizzled out or faded away. We're CLOSE to finishing 5E Tomb of Annihilation, at level 9 (Ranger Gloomstalker 5/Rogue Assassin 4/Warlock Initiate). That's been once a month, three hour session for seven years. (I took some time off to finish a Masters in there, too.)

 

[AlViking]

In 5e, level 20, in 4 it was 30, 3 was around 14 since the game became "wait for the wizards turn" because the encounter would be over. Before that? Not particularly high, probably less than 10th but its been a long time.

 

[aco175]

Had a 2e thief named Lucky that would have been level 25-30 if he could have kept the level drain away. He ended up being like level 12 in the end.

Recently in 5e days we played to level 15 with the Prince of the Apocalypse campaign. It took almost 3 years playing.

 

[Burnside]

In an actual play show running Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus, running 4 hour recording sessions on average once per month, took almost exactly 3 years to get from level 1 to level 13 in 5E. I also played through Tomb of Annihilation, also multi-year campaign, rose from level 1 to 11 and my character died in the final fight of the campaign.

I had a 2E fighter that I ran from the middle of 8th grade until I graduated from high school, so almost 5 years playing about once per week give or take. He reached I think somewhere between level 9-11 but I think we stopped making our characters go up levels at a certain point because we didn’t really want them to get more powerful than they were.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I'm mostly a DM.
I ran 2e from 1st to 23rd-ish (depending on class). That was like 120 4-6hr sessions in college. Plus it was 13 players.

I ran 3e from 1st to 22nd. 6-8 players, ran 8 years, biweekly 6hr sessions minus some holidays. It started with just the PHB I got from Gencon 2000, last session was shortly after 4e came out.

We skipped 4e.

5e I played in a game that went 1-20 (I wasn't able to join until 8th, tho in february of 2022). It started maybe 2019, after Ghosts of Saltmarsh was released. It was a GotS Mashup with Princes of the Apocalypse. I have ... strong opinions about PotA's design flaws. Also 6hr sessions, bi-weekly minus holidays.

 

[Davinshe]

As a player: 15th level in 3rd edition. As a DM, in 4th edition we went all the way from level 1 to 30, and that took basically the entire length of the edition. We started pretty near to when the edition released, and by the time we ended there was rumblings of 5th on the way.

 

[Clint_L]

Overall, my primary 1E character was my highest, but I technically didn't start with the character (it was one of the DMs, who gifted it to me so I could play in the current adventure). He had run it from level 1/1 Druid/Thief to about level 5/7 when I took it over, then played it for about 5 years until she was level 36 Thief (Druid capped out in 1E, but I don't remember at what level).

Assuming you don't count that one, my highest level character was a 4E Warlord I took to level 30 in a Dark Sun campaign. The DM basically ran us through the novels as the protagonists.

Other editions:
2E: capped levels for an elf fighter/mage, but I don't remember what the level limit was (mage was mid-teens)
3E: highest only got to level 15 before the campaign collapsed under itself
5E: got a dwarf cleric up to level 18, which was a ton of fun

1e: 11 or 13 - I was sure it was 13 but have started to doubt my memory.

5e: 14. Those are the only editions where I’ve had substantial character arcs. But I don’t get to play much.

 

[TiQuinn]

Highest level PC who started at 1st level - My 16th level Swashbuckler in 5e. This took about a year and a quarter of play time.

I also had a 20th level Ranger but we started that campaign at 5th level. This took about the same amount of time for us so at least we’re consistent!

For comparison, my highest level character in 2e was 8th level, and that took about a year and a half of play.

 

[messy]

Level 12 in 3e.

This thread needs a poll!