D&D 5E Poll: When do you typically retire your PCs?

[LordEntrails]

Death, always death. Level is irrelevant.

Maybe you meant to ask at what level do you get bored with your characters? Or ...

 

[Sacrosanct]

Death, always death. Level is irrelevant.

Maybe you meant to ask at what level do you get bored with your characters? Or ...

Well, I did, in my OP.

 

[Rabbitbait]

A number of different reasons over the last 36 years I've been playing - eeep.

1. The DM gets bored with the campaign (or the work involved) and stops
2. The story comes to its natural end
3. TPK
4. The campaign ends because the bad guys won.
5. People move away

Any of those can happen at any level.

Also - different characters drift in and out of campaigns for various reasons

1. Their characters die
2. The character meets the end of their natural story arc within the campaign
3. The player gets bored with the character and rolls up a new one.
4. The characters story ends (not always by dying).

The last two campaigns have finished at levels 14 (5e) and 26 (4e). for 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions the campaigns often fizzled out about level 14 as the 'sweet spot' ended, characters became annoyingly complex and DM preptime got too much.

 

[Mercule]

It's not explicitly level-based. Typically, though, somewhere between 10th and 15th level.

 

[Pickles III]

If the campaigns last long enough I lose enjoyment between 9 & 13 level.

They often crash well before that though. (& I never retire a character early*/** it's just when the campaign as a whole ends)


* though sometimes I retire a character 'cos I just don't enjoy it & swap to another of about the same level, at any level.

**except that last 3.5 game at level 13? where everyone else played another session or two.

 

[cbwjm]

"Whenever" would be my answer. Sometimes they only get a couple of sessions before they are retired due to the character not really being as much fun to play as I thought.

 

[Draegn]

For us there is no "level" to retire at. Instead when a character's story arc ends the character is put aside. Often then becoming a npc or alternate character to bring in during downtime or if something happens in the overall story that causes a return.

For example: the knight who starts out seeking revenge upon a childhood nemesis, slays the beast, wins a fiefdom, marries a princess (not the one he originally wanted) and now spends his time policing the land. However, when at opportunity to wage war presents itself he comes out with his army to fight if it is beneficial to his kingdom's security. In effect being the "mass combat" PC.

 

[Raith5]

For me it is mostly edition dependent. There has been a point where the game just doesnt seem to work or be fun anymore. All my campaigns in 1st through 3rd edition stopped around 12th level where the game started to be grind, so we just shuffled our PCs and campaign into the sunset. My 4th ed campaign is still going at 30th and 5th edition shows no signs of slowing down.

 

[Hathorym]

When I feel the character is at a point in their career that retirement would be a logical step...

Or when the campaign dies.

 

[Shiroiken]

I play a character until their story has been told; usually that's the conclusion of a campaign, but not always. The duration of said story and campaign wildly varies, from having stopped after only level 1 to all the way up to level 36 (in my first 1E campaign).