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

[JamesonCourage]

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.

So close to my experience! Though I've only been running games for nine years. But, yes, level 4 for me, too. And it was in my brother's Wheel of Time campaign (a 3.X clone). I loved that character.

But my players, back when we played in 3.5, went all the way to 30, over the course of some years and many sessions (back when we could all play 3-5 times per week), and we still hit those characters every once in a while (even though I have a lot of problems with the system). But, they started at level 2, and I love to rub that in their face. They'll do something amazingly powerful, and once every few sessions will say "and we earned these characters!" and everyone will beam. And I'll say "Well... almost." And the hate rays they aim at me! Ah, good times... As always, play what you like

 

[Blackbrrd]

Got to level 18 in a Dragonlance campaign in 3.5. It's been on "hold" for two years now, so I am guessing we aren't going any further.

 

[Lwaxy]

Kind of feel out of place here. I had a paladin, Ayla, get to lvl 33. In theory, she is still running around chasing bad folks, but our GM gave up trying to find more challenging adventure ideas so we started a new campaign. I occasionally make her show up as an NPC though.

 

[Pour]

Currently DMing a 4e group that is level 25, with plans to go to 30. I played a 3e druid till level 11, when in my youthful ignorance I switched to a melee class to be more on par with the fighter *smacks self* and made it to level 18 as a ranger. I always DMed 2e as a little kid, but we never really made it past the level we were on, usually 1-3.

 

[Ajar]

I had a 2E wizard get to level 8, and a 3E wizard get to level 7 or 8. In 4E, my swordmage|warden hybrid just multiclassed into wizard at level 21. Soon we'll be headed to the Fortress of Conclusion to confront Acererak or die trying...

 

[steeldragons]

From level 1? ...of continuous play, that'd be my 1e MU who made it to 15. All other play at or around (12-18 or so) always started higher/were specifically created for the higher level play. Now that I'm thinking about it...I don't know that I've ever played a PC that was 20 or higher level. In some 30 years...nope, don't think I have. Wow!

Other starting at 1st level characters typically made it to somewhere in the 7th-10th range before the game either changed or people got tired of them/wanted to play something else.

 

[Blue]

Hmm, let em break it out be edition:

Went from Basic Set to Expert, so at least level 4.

AD&D had a 5th level wizard after a year of play, that was the longest campaign starting @ 1st.

AD&D 2nd went to 24 (epic). That was with a very long running set of intertwined campaigns in the FR. And in AD&D it was a 9 months between levels (playing all day every Saturday) after about 9th, with the occasional magic book to add a level and bring you half way to the next.

3.x played 1st to 10th - most of my other 3.5 was conversions of existing 2nd characters. (I had characters start at 1st in ADD& 2nd, get converted, and finish at 23 in 3.x. Not sure if that counts.)

4e did 1-10. Did 2-12, but that wasn't starting at 1st.

Next we're still 1st, but not for long.

 

[fjw70]

In my first D&D campaign back in 1982 I made it to 150th level (fighter). My friend I played with went to 250th level (magic-user) but he played the same character in 2 campaigns. We both had an army of dragons and invaded the Nine Hells. Needless to say but we bent/broke many rules to accomplish this, but it was a lot of fun as a 12 year old.

Other than that I do not believe I have ever made back to double digits.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

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.

Same here, more or less.

Unsurprisingly, I'm pretty sick of the low low levels.

 

[Iosue]

In our BECMI campaign, THE Campaign, the first we ever ran playing D&D and the longest, the PCs got to the mid- to high teens. This was helped in part by ignoring the rule that you could only advance a level at a time. Once the PCs established their domains, they were essentially retired, and we started playing with their apprentices and followers. The original PCs continued to level, since Mentzer's domain rules allow for XP to be gained from domain income. So once in a while we'd break them out again at progressively higher levels. We may have felt that the days of regular role-playing were coming to an end, because we had one last, huge, epic (and ultimately unfinished) adventure with those PCs at max level getting involved in a huge war that swept over the world that their original adventures essentially created.

Good times.