Highest level you've played

[the Jester]

PLAYED/PLAYING:
1e- 40th level magic-user (this only happened because she was resurrected a couple times by later parties, and kept going til she died again; she was a legend)
2e- er, maybe... hmm... not sure about this one. Maybe about 15/15? I did much less playing after 1e...
3e- hmm, I played in omrob's epic 3.5 campaign, which kinda petered out as he had children and stuff. We started at 21st, and I was prolly about 25th when we last played it.
4e- I played in a one-shot (well, really, a two-shot) paragon level game at about, hmm, maybe 14th level?

DMED/DMING:
1e- High teens/low 20s
2e- High teens/low 20s. However, some 2e characters made it to the end of the 3e epic campaign, converting and continuing from the mid-high teen levels all the way up...
3e- Hmm, at the end of the epic campaign, I think maybe one pc hit 40th level? If not, several were in the 37-39 range. So nigh-40th, I guess.
4e- Not counting a practice paragon-level combat or two, the highest-level 4e pcs I've dmed are currently just shy of 9th. Probably next session they'll level. We'll hit paragon before long!!

EDIT: Oooh, I forgot about a one-shot I ran with these three snotty kids back in high school (this would be during the 1e era). They kept talking crap about how they had unbeatable pcs, etc., so I offered to run them through Darkhold, my toughest custom dungeon. They took the challenge; we all met one day, with one of our mutual friends also playing (and hosting). The three snots turned out to be great gamers, with the only 50th-75th level 1st edition pcs I have ever seen that I could believe might have earned at least some of that crazy high level. But they got tpked but one when they drank the intoxicating water.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

1E: Played a Thief from 1st level up to about 5th maybe. This was a game run by one of my teachers back in high school about 14 years ago so my memory is a little hazy.

AD&D 2E: Took a Thief character (with the Assassin kit) from 1st level all the way up to 15th level before I had to leave the campaign (needed to concentrate on my final year of school).

3E: I converted my AD&D 2E Thief over to a 3E Rogue and played him up to 17th or 18th level.

3.5E: Played a 10th level Wizard for 2 or 3 sessions. Other than that I've been DM the whole time.

Overall my actual playing experience has been pretty limited. Since I managed to play the very first character I ever created for myself all the way up to 17th or 18th level without dying once I've never really got a chance to play many other character types. The Thief/Rogue class is also my favourite now as a result.

And now that I DM I get to play a lot of different character classes but never any for long enough to really master them.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Altalazar]

1st Ed AD&D: Probably around 16th level (it varies by class so much...)
2nd Ed AD&D: Probably around 15th level
3.0E: We didn't play long enough to get that far, so I'm not sure.
3.5E: 27th level (with only one campaign, generally we've not gotten even to Epic).

 

[The Green Adam]

I'm going backaways to recall as I rarely play D&D or class/level systems very often. In the heyday of my D&D gaming (1e - roughly 1981-1984) I mostly DMed. Still and all, my highest character personally was a Cleric/Fighter-10/12 who started out 1/1.

The highest characters I've seen played were a party in 1e that started at 1st and over the course of about 3 1/2 years got up around 18-24.

Some of my 3e party reached 16 or so and then we jmped the campaign ahead a few hundred years to play a latter generation. Some of the Elves were still around as 20-25+ lvl NPCs.

Some of the numbers I'm seeing here, 100 and higher, seem to be waaay out there. Perhaps a clarification or forked thread on what level your character has earned/reached instead of "we played a 1 shot where we all made up 2909th level characters...".

AD

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Played...
AD&D 2e: 18th level (some of the other characters in the game were slightly higher than this).
D&D 3e: 16th level in an ongoing campaign, though I very briefly played a 35th level character.

DMed...
AD&D 2e: 15th level (I had plans for the campaign to go on for several more levels worth of stuff, but the group disintegrated).
D&D 3e: 26th level

 

[El Mahdi]

AD&D 2E: Played up to 10th but played a one-off at 15th
--------- DM'd one-off at 20th

3E: Played up to 15th
--- DM'd up to 10th

4E: nothing yet (not my system, but I will play occasionally with friends, just no opportunities yet).

 

[Betote]

BECMI - Played 1st, DM'ed 2nd
AD&D2 - Played 20th (a one-shot), DM'ed 5th
D&D3.5 - Played 5th, DM'ed 8th
D&D4 - Played 1st, DM'ed 1st
Pathfinder - DM'ed 10th, not played yet.

Both 3.5 and Pathfinder were played/DM'ed from 1st level.

 

[Baron Opal]

Well, let's see now...

OD&D: 1
* After killing some orcs we ran into some giant ants. Used the sleep on the orcs. The party fed my wizard to the ants to escape. Swine.

AD&D: 19
* Garthorn the wizard retired to his tower after a long and somewhat tragic career.

AD&D 2e: 16
* Tauntien who made it to Ranger 2 / Wizard 14, retiring after he found a ring of Fire Elemental Command.

D&D 3e: 8
* Vinndalf my paladin / sorceror. He was fun and a source of consternation to the DM given how I play paladins. Shilsen would have been proud. Or amused at any rate.

D&D 4e: Haven't played yet. I do have my wizard worked out, however.

I do run almost exclusively. In my early days I was in school so I had much more time to play and thus had a long term character. When I was involved in Living City that afforded me another chance to have a long term PC.

And, yes, I am partial to wizards.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Highest I've played: 32nd level (from 1st, with fast levelling). That was ages ago.

Highest I've heard of: 1024th. Courtesy of diaglo. In this thread.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

1st/2nd Edition: A 35th level paladin/17th level monk/19th level ascetic (from Legends & Lore) who later picked up 20 levels of fighter and the rank of Demigod (against my will). The character was generated at that level. It was part of an old campaign that I played for several months. The other players were a 35th level ranger/35th level thief/23rd level druid, a 38th level cleric who was a human-sized frost giant, and a 35th level rogue/35th level illusionist. The cleric and the ranger/thief/druid had started from 1st level. Yes we basically ignored the humans can't multiclass rules.

3.0/3.5 Edition: I didn't play, but I ran a game. We were 28th level. Had a githzerai 14th level psychic warrior/4th level rogue/10th level pyrokineticist (allowed him to take Extra Power to meet the Prereq), a human 8th level druid/11th level master of many forms/2nd level warshaper/7th level seeker of the Misty Isle, a dwarven 10th level Evoker/10th level fighter/8th level Planeshifter, straight 28th level rogue who bought Leadership and Epic Leadership, and a straight 18th level cleric/10th level Blackguard with Divine Rank 1. This game had started at 1st level with a Gnome Druid, a Half-orc Fighter, a Dwarven Fighter (the dwarf above), and a half-elf bard. The Githzerai entered at 5th level as a psychic warrior. The cleric entered at 12th level along with a Drow 5th level Noble (from Dragonlance)/5th level Necromancer who left after becoming a 7th level Noble/7th level Necromancer with the Vampire Template.