What is the minimum level would you play if you were never to gain xp again?

[MonsterMash]

I voted - Are you crazy as I'm not sure I can imaging playing D&D without advancement, but if pushed I'd say level 2

 

[shilsen]

Anywhere between 6 and 11, but I voted for 9.

 

[jeffh]

8 seems about right. Third level spells are no longer the height of the spellcaster's craft but still must be rationed carefully; a reasonable number of feats and ability bumps are available, several interesting PrCs are realistic options, most classes have a good variety of abilities, but at the same time you're still in the 5-9 range that most monsters and adventures seem to cater to. You do not yet have long-range teleportation or the ability to raise the dead relatively freely, so the stuff some people find broken or weird is mostly not on line yet. This seems to me to be the best compromise.

Having said that, I would generally find very very slow advancement preferable to none at all. A two-year campaign ranging from level 4 or so to about 9 or 10 sounds cool.

 

[Wild Gazebo]

Seventh. It's always been my favorite level for some strange reason.

 

[davidschwartznz]

I voted 'are you crazy?'. Not because I like the acquisition of power, but because I like my characters to change. And 3E allows for a lot of change as a character advances. My characters never end up exactly the way I envisioned them when I started.

 

[WayneLigon]

Sixth. By that time you have a good mix of class abilities, spells and other things. Most of the 'coolest' abilities have kicked in by then even if just at their lowest level. There is a potential even for a prestige class or viable multiclass option to have made an appearance.

 

[Cheiromancer]

5/6 level is fun to play at, but I wouldn't like to be 6th level forever. I find it hard to make a world believable in which *no* NPC is above 6th level. Maybe that's just me. And I would hate to have my character going to be perpetually outshone by the NPCs. After 6th level you'd want to get to the good spells and the good prestige class abilities, and that takes a few levels.

So I said 13th level. I echo what people said about 12th level, but with 7th level spells available. If the PCs and (almost all) NPCs are capped at 13th level the campaign world will still have access to the most significant magic (and magic items), but there would still be some ancient mysteries hanging around (8th and 9th level spells). The PCs are powerful enough to handle boss monsters of up to CR 20 or so (with difficulty), and so nothing in the monster manual is really out of bounds. Most prestige classes have granted significant abilities. Many feat/class combos are possible, but most of the insanities of high level optimizations are still a bit out of reach. Political achievements are appropriate and believable, and provide a good alternative reward to xp.

There's a lot that people can do at this level of power, and you could play a long time without feeling the lack of advancement.

 

[Greg K]

It was a toss up between 5th and 6th, but I settled on sixth for the reasons mentined above.

 

[gtJormungand]

As someone briefly mentioned, not advancing levels is rather pointless for D&D, unless the game is only a one shot deal. Most of the fun that I derive from playing deals with advancing the abilities of characters over a period of time, which would not happen without gaining experience.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Seventeen. Unless I can cast any of the spells in the PHB, I will always want for more...

I went for 16 for similar reasons. I'm ok with 8th level spells for most classes, and I definitly want the bard's full 6.

In theory if the game was sufficiently interesting and there were other forms of growth and advancement available I might be happy with 7 or 8.