Poll: What is the highest level you've ever gamed to?

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

So I was reading Oryan77's thread about how fast people level up and someone mentioned that they had never had in 35 years of gaming a campaign that went over level 15 I think it was. This got me to thinking about the subject of levels and what people have experienced. Personally, I've DM'd two games to the top of level progression, but I've never been a player beyond level 12 (and this was back in 2E).

So what is the top level you've DM'd to and what is the top level you've played to? I'll put in a few tiers to try to capture most of us and if you are a DM/Player like me you can answer both. Feel free to comment if you want to be specific.

Trav

So a few comments below are talking about systems and whatnot. What I'm just trying to find out is the TOP level regardless of system, edition, leveling requirements, leveling speed (in-game or IRL), rules, home-brewing, or whatever other variants you can think of is the highest you've ever played or DM'd to. Feel free to explain if you wish to talk about things and get more in-depth, but I just wanted something very general to go with here.

 

[Graybeard]

I played in a campaign that went to level 18. The game ran every Friday night for about 4 years. One game I DM'd went to level 9.

 

[DragonLancer]

Depends on the system/edition.

1st ed AD&D: I don't think we ever went higher then 10th simply because of the mechanical issues.

2nd ed AD&D: 13th I think was the highest, and that was because the game broke down much above that.

3.X: Both my Shackled City and Age of Worms campaigns went to 20th, and both worked really well.

Pathfinder: Have run one campaign that went to 20th and didn't have the issues that we had under 3.X or earlier. Currently running a PF campaign that I expect to go higher than 20th and feeling comfortable about it.

 

[Umbran]

It seems to me that, cross-editions, answers won't mean a whole lot. Levels in different editions effectively mean different things, and leveling speed was different in each game.

 

[the Jester]

I've both played and dmed 26+, and at least in some cases, those guys were worked up from 1st level.

 

[Baron Opal]

In first edition, I've DMed and played to the 16-20th level range.

In third (DM / player), we've topped out at 8th. That seems to be the line of death, oddly.

In fourth (DM only), we reached 12-13th and then things wrapped up.

 

[steeldragons]

I should clarify (well, I suppose I don't have to, but I'm not doing anything else at the moment, so lucky you!), the absolute highest level I played to was a single character who got up to 17th. But I put 11-15 since that is where the bulk of my high level characters ended up (I can think of ones at 11, 12 and 14 off the top of my head).

So that's the highest I've played to...ever.

What is more common to play to/the level where most of my characters get before changing campaigns or games or DMs (or whatever causes the shift in PCs) is more like 7-10. I have many more characters in the 7-10 range than any other level.

There are several I would have been/still be happy to take to higher levels if I could. But at this point, I think it's safe to say they are forever happily retired to ye olde Hall of Heroes (i.e. that ratty old folder/notebook I've kept character sheets in for a few decades).

--SD

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I didn't want to get into editions and whatnot, so I went very general with the answers, of course level say for AD&D 2E it was "topped" at level 20, but some people I've heard play above that into godhood levels and end around 23-25, so it would still be possible to have a higher level game even if the level cap was only 20 for mortals of that edition. We know that 4E caps at 30, so I wanted to also leave the room there so that's why I went to 26+ because maybe you played 4E, homebrewed it and played gods at level 32+. I understand as well with different systems come different leveling speeds, but within each system as well there are differences in how people level up where some campaigns level up 1x per year and others are up to level 20 in a year. I didn't want to try to get that encompassed in this either because there are way too many variants.

 

[was]

about level 14

 

[SnowleopardVK]

I've played up to about 14. I've DMed up to about 7.

I'm only counting games that started from 1st level in both instances. Starting from a level higher up, I've both played and DMed higher.