What level do people get to on average?

[Sans.]

Obviously most of the time people will never get to level 20, because at that point you're basically unstoppable and unchallengeable, which sucks all the fun out of it, not to mention it would take about a decade. But how long does a standard game run? Level 9? Level 15?

[j_spencer93]

In 3.5 i manage to run several campaigns to 20 and rather quickly. However in 5th ive had less time playing and our campaigns always end up canceled, so around 10 here.

[MrStabby]

Other than short one shots/single dungeons I have finished in the range 8 to 15.

[JellyPooga]

No game I started at Level 1 ever went beyond 6th.

Games I've played that started at a higher level have lasted for similar time-frames, i.e. about 5 levels.

I've never played a game above level 14.

All of the above applies to tabletop D&D games and PbP, of various editions, including clones (e.g. Castles & Crusades) but not CRPGs (Planescape: Torment went to what? Level 30? 40? Higher? I forget. The Baldurs Gate series took you from 1 to 20-odd at least...good times...good times...).

[thedanster7000]

In AL we played for a couple of months and only levelled up twice the whole time. I came back to it recently and levelled first session, so it seems to me to heavily depend on group really.

[Cl0001]

I've had one game end at 14,15 and 16. I've only had one game go to 20, and that was even fudged a bit. The one I'm in now is level 9 and we started at one, it's taken us ~13 episodes. It's really hard to get a game to go to 20. The story line has to be well thought out and long. Then the players have to get along and be dedicated.

[Biggstick]

Levels 5-12. I've only played in one game that has gone above that, and that was milestone xp rather then actual xp (The DM wanted to play for late game, so every session or two he would have a year pass in game and grant us a level).

That was an irl game as well. My experience ranges from Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Adventure League, and IRL games.

[JAL_1138]

In League I usually get to about 7 or 8. I'd have characters higher, but the only games in the area running higher currently are hardcover games that are full up; other than that they're mainly running low-level games. I had a bard I started in season 2 who would be over level 10 if I had kept going with him, but I lost the logsheets early into S3 and wasn't comfortable continuing to play him without the documentation, so I scrapped him instead and started over. I have three level 7s, two level 4s, and a level 3. Only two are getting much play, one of the 4s and one of the 3s.

[rrwoods]

All 3.5, but:

I'm in a campaign that I started at 1 and am currently 13. It's dying a bit, because of people moving away and such, but we still get to play every now and again. Assuming we carry it all the way through I think we'll probably have our casters see 9ths (so 17-18 or so).

I'm in another campaign that also started at 1, currently 6, and shows no signs of stopping. I expect it to get to 20, we'll see.

[Ashrym]

Prior to 5e it was 11-14, typically. 5e hasn't changed much but it's been easier to get to 20th several times.

What's harder is keeping a group for epic play. Once a group gets to that point most campaigns are wrapping up. I never see a DM running continuous campaigns at 20th level unless it was started at 20th level.

[DracoKnight]

I've played in seven ongoing campaigns games with my D&D group since the start of 5th (we have multiple DMs running multiple games), and of those:

The first game is still running, we're almost 11th level. We play on a weekly basis and the game started two years ago. This was the first game we played as a group. There were initially 10 players in this game, but due to lost interest, or moving away, we now have 5 players.

The second game has ended now. I was the DM, and the players reached 20th level. We started this game a year-and-a-half ago and it ended 6 months ago. We had 6 players, and I through hard-to-deadly encounters at the players to see how they would deal with them (thus why they leveled up so quickly).

The third game is a Skyrim game. We've been playing for a year-and-three-quarters now, but more infrequently - we're 7th level. We had a party of four characters for the longest time, but a fifth just joined last week.

The fourth game is run very infrequently, and I joined when the party was 5th level. We're 7th level now, with no plans to end any time soon.

The fifth game is a sequel to the campaign. The DM is having us play the grandchildren of the characters from that game, and we're 4th level.

The sixth game has been running for two years, and started a couple of weeks after our first campaign. We're 14th level, with four characters. This game is online.

The seventh game is my second foray into the world of DMing. I'm running Out of the Abyss, modified for my homebrew world. We started two weeks ago, and the characters are 2nd level.

In conclusion, I've seen high-level endgame play, and lots of low-level play. My group doesn't care what level we are, we just have fun with it. Sometimes we very heavily optimize, and other times we're like: "I'm gonna try out this combo." Every game has been fun for all involved, and we haven't seen a decline in fun at higher levels.

[Aembrosia]

My average character is level 8. I mostly dm. Depending on the flavor of game the group is into a campaign comes to either a graceful or abrupt halt between levels 14 to 17.

[PeteNutButter]

My AL characters are sort of retired at 9 and 13 with the one I'm currently playing at 6.

In homebrew games I've had two end at level 13 and few at around level 6, and too many to count not making it past level 3. The low level ones would greatly pull the average down, but if you ignore the data from games that don't make it past infancy it feels like 11-13 is level cap in my experience.

To be more specific it seems most games end or die shortly after they should have been switching tier at levels ~6 and ~13. If the DM or adventure doesn't adjust along with the tier, the characters outpace their challenges and more than break the game. They shatter it.

[ruy343]

Our group has a tendency to switch DMs regularly (at least twice per year, usually more often), and with each DM switch, we cook up a new batch of characters. The largest level progression was from levels 1-9, but that was kind of fudged a bit. We did a homebrew that took us from level 8 to level 14 once as well. However, usually, our campaigns will last for a few levels (4-ish is common) and end with a triumphant finish.

I imagine that there are other groups out there like mine who don't stick with the same characters for years. After all, playing the same characters for years would get stale, no?

[mgshamster]

For my OotA game, the PCs are level 10, soon to level up. Published campaign will end around 16, but I have homebrew plans to take it to 20 and beyond.

[BiPolar]

Interesting to see that the character planning on this board is for level 20...but rarely does anyone achieve that.

[Draco4472]

I've only made it to 8 in 5e. I have 2 characters at that level and a 3rd about to reach that point.

[Corsair14]

In the 25ish years I have been playing I have never had a character go past 11 and that was in 3rd ed.

[pwykersotz]

My table typically plays to 20, and up to level 40 back in 3.5. The characters typically have a run of 2 years or so. We sometimes do side adventures with new characters that run about 4-8 levels, these can take some months, and then we move on.

So far in 5e, I haven't had a party past level 12, but we're getting there. The delay is mostly due to certain group members having major life events.

[The Shadowdove]

3.5 we only had one party make it past 6. We died at level 12.

5e seems to be a lot more brutal. We die before 6 often. Our main party, after three party wipes since release, has made it to 15 recently and I'm pretty stoked.

Epic level has always felt so so far away.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Games I've played that started at a higher level have lasted for similar time-frames, i.e. about 5 levels.
This seems about right, generally.

[PeteNutButter]

Just throwing this out there, but as levels increase the gap between the optimizer and non-optimizer gets wider. If the party is not all on the same level of optimization combat can break down to, "let's all watch that guy kill everything."

I've seen it on both sides and it starts to chip away at the game. To me, it's a big factor in games ending. Either the DM or the players are realizing that it's time to end the campaign and wipe the slate so everyone can feel like they are contributing in combat again. It just so happens that that usually happens in the tweeny levels around 11-13, in my experience.

The gap was much much wider in 3e but still very present in 5e.

[SillyPopeNachos]

The highest the 1st game I DM'd went to level 8 (starting at 1) when the group got TPK'd and decided they wanted to switch to a different campaign, as they'd gotten bored with their characters. The one currently running is my second, and the group is currently level 4 (they started at 1). In total time I've been DMing for about 8 months, so that averages 1.5 levels a month for my players. My current plans for this campaign is to go between levels 20 and 25.