What is the Highest Level You Have Reached From Level 1?

[Zardnaar]

In 20 years of playing D&D I have only managed to get to level 4. This is mostly due to being an eternal DM. I have played at higher levels but that was mostly due to starting at higher level and advancing a few levels. The level 4 thing was in 1994 when I was in an actual campaign using the rules cyclopedia.

 

[Jack99]

23 as a DM. As a player, 12 iirc.

 

[sabrinathecat]

26 in one game. 24 in another. And we have a lvl 4 game and a lvl 13 game. We had a lvl16 game, but the DM moved away to get a better job.
If we had actually focused, we's have finished through lvl30 of 2 games and be lvl 16 or so in a 3rd. We take turns running, and sometimes skip a week, or switch games when a player isn't around and don't want to continue Game X without Player Y.

 

[Li Shenron]

IIRC 17th but not strictly starting from 1st, but I think rather from ~6th.

I don't remember what level I've ever reached starting from 1st... most of the times as a player I've been in games where we started at higher level, typically 3rd.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Level 2.

And that was after one session.

What can I say? I have DMed for 32 years and I have only ever played a few times: the last time was in 2010 and before that it was in 1984.

 

[Herzog]

Most of the campaigns i play in start at lvl 1. Most of them end at lvl 10 to 12. There's one that reached lvl 16, and is still running. However, although some of the players are still running their starting characters, i am playing my second character that started at lvl 8 ( i think).

 

[MerricB]

In AD&D, where most of my playing has been, 13th level Wizard
In D&D 4E, I've reached 10th level (Ardent)
In Star Wars Saga, I reached 20th level (Noble).

As a DM, I've run games to 9th level (AD&D), 10th level (AD&D 2E), 21st level (D&D 3E) and 30th level (D&D 4E). I haven't run enough BECMI D&D to remember those levels - not very high, though!

Cheesr!

 

[Raith5]

In 3rd ed I got to 13th and in 4th ed I have got to 21st and still going strong.

 

[Herobizkit]

I've had a 1ed wizard carry over to 2ed, get to level 20 and then dual-class to Cleric 15 before I retired her forever.
I've also had a 3e Fighter/Rogue and a Favored Soul get to level 17.
4e, highest level I've gotten to so far is 4.

 

[delericho]

Personally, 2nd or 3rd. I tend not to be a player very often, and when I am a player the campaigns tend not to start at 1st level.

Additionally, there was a very long spell (in fact, ever since 3.0e was published) when I never rolled higher than a '1' for hit points on levelling up* - this tended to lead to many replacement characters, who tended to start higher than level 1.

* Yes, really. My bad luck with dice is near-legendary in my group. On the plus side, I seem to live a fairly charmed life apart from dice (and cards), so I think it's a fair trade.

As a DM:

One party reached 15th level in a very-munchkin 2nd Edition campaign.

One party reached 18th level in my 3.5e "Shackled City" campaign. If we had bothered to level-up after the last session of the campaign, the survivors would have reached 19th level.

In my current 3.5e campaign the PCs have just hit 13th level. I expect them to reach 15th by the end of the campaign in a couple of months.

I don't expect ever to see another group reach those heights again, though - the current campaign has highlighted again the "sweet spot" of 3.5e, so I'll probably run another campaign at those levels; and it's looking increasingly likely that I'll give 5e a miss.