Character longtivity

[BobVosh]

Someone on here posted something about average character life being ~6 levels. I'm on 10 with one, and 7 in another. I'm just curious how long most people play thier characters, and length of campaign in general (in levels, mention if it is a particularly slow level system or other related duration issues)

Mainly curious because it surprised me that people have trouble keeping thier characters alive.

*edit* In light of Parra's character, how long in RL time do the games last? My longest is just over a year with a mostly weekly meet up.

[jmbrown]

With one DM I have the average life expectancy of 2 levels. This is an old school DM who's been playing since the original Gray Box back in the 70s where you had FIGHTAN-MAN, CLERIC, and MAGIC-GUY as your class selections. He has a very Gygaxian approach to encounters meaning we're constantly outnumbered, time is always a factor, lallygagging gives the enemy time to strengthen themselves, and random encounters are deadly.

I wouldn't mind surviving more than 3 levels but at this point I have more fun creating new characters than seeing which ones can live the longest.

[Parra]

I had one character last ~5 years, 24 levels and 2 editions (2nd-3rd ed). A Rogue that made extensive use of the Use Magic Device skill to mimic alot of casters high level survivability.

[bosssmiley]

With one DM I have the average life expectancy of 2 levels. This is an old school DM who's been playing since the original Gray Box back in the 70s where you had FIGHTAN-MAN, CLERIC, and MAGIC-GUY as your class selections. He has a very Gygaxian approach to encounters meaning we're constantly outnumbered, time is always a factor, lollygagging gives the enemy time to strengthen themselves, and random encounters are deadly.

I wouldn't mind surviving more than 3 levels but at this point I have more fun creating new characters than seeing which ones can live the longest.

Old school D&D: doing "losing is fun" for decades before Dorf Fortress.

My average character? Lasts a few levels at most. They tend to die in heroic or foolish fashion quite early.

Longest-standing character by level was a ranger who made ~16 in 1/2E D&D (way back in the dim-and-distant days). That took a couple of years of regular play. He was eventually ganked by a caster fap DM who was way too into Dragonlance.

[Gorbash]

I've been playing my current character (in my sig) since lvl Awesome, I mean, 5 and he's about to hit lvl 14, his first level of Archmage. It's been 2 years since then and he began in the Red Hand of Doom campaign and transfered at lvl 9 into Shackled City Adventure Path when the former fell apart.

Since then he died 3 times (last time True Resurrecetd). First time at the hands of a Bone Devil and 4 Greenspawn Razorfiends, second time he got killed by a trap that did 100+ dmg. Third time, in an inn, almost the whole party got killed by a group of assassins who had pebbles with Silence cast on it.

Tally of Dragons killed: 1 Green Dragon, 1 Black Dragon, 2 Blue Dragons, 1 Green Dracolich.

Total times of getting hit by Lighting Bolts, Chain Lightning, Lightning Breath Weapons and similar attacks: 23

[Eldariel]

Usually from ~3-7 to 20. Occasionally into epic. Occasionally starting at ~17-20 and few levels into the epic.

[Rhiannon87]

In high school, we'd be lucky to level up, our games started and stopped so sporadically. The DM wasn't great at plotting out stories and got bored easily. I went through a few characters there.

Since college and after, though, my characters have survived much longer, although I've only played 3. My gnome druid made it from 6 to 9, and her replacement in the party, a human paladin, was at level 9 when the game died a slow and agonizing death. My spy has survived, shockingly, from level 6 to 12, and is likely to make it to her retirement as a level 17 or 18 character. Our group does not believe in rolling up new characters for the game the spy is in. We are carrying around tens of thousands of gold pieces worth of diamonds for a reason. And that reason is every character has died at least twice, if not more. We've actually only had two character switches: one due to irreversible death in a random encounter when the dice were epically hating on us, and one because a player got bored with his character and wanted to try something new.

So my characters survive quite a long time.

As do most of my games: I just graduated from college in June, and both the games I am/was a player in started autumn of my sophomore year.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Every campaign I run starts at 1st and goes on to 20th level, within a 3-4 level margin (our third-to-last one started at 3rd and went to 18th due to time constraints, for instance). Well, for 3e at least, as I run my 1e/2e games with a bit more lethality. My group has on at least one occasion referred to my older DMGs as "the Gospel according to Gygax."

[Jergmo]

I haven't had many chances to be playing a PC character lately, 'cause I seem to have become my group of friend's go-to guy for DM'ing. But, I think my first character, an Elven Wizard, made it to level 4 before we quit. Um...my rogue/swashbuckler, which was by itself started at 4 and made it to 8 before dying due to some really ridiculous circumstances, and currently I've got a Necromancer in the same guy's campaign who started at 8 and is about to become level 12. (Also by himself. lol undead minions )

[zarakstan]

In general it depends on who I'm playing with and what we're playing, one of my groups meets once a year for 1 week and we play everyday my regular group meets often and I can expect to go to high level unless it is a module like Ravenloft. The highest I've gone with one character is 1st-18th

[AstralFire]

Less than one level because I've never been a player in a campaign long enough to gain XP.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I had a Gold Dwarf ex-Paladin/Fighter who made it to 5th level in an Undermountain campaign, back in... 8th grade so 2002 or so I think. I think that's seriously the highest I've ever taken a character, starting from 1st level. Unfortunately, my friends got bored with the game and left, while I stubbornly insisted on playing alone, and of course poor Regin got slaughtered the first time he went into Undermountain alone. XD

In my campaign I'm DMing, there's a character who's gone from 1st to 10th level, sort of. Actually we stopped playing this game for about a year, and I gave him 2 levels for free when we started Part Two. And I don't actually use XP, I just give the players a new level after every couple encounters. Because running combat takes so long over AIM, we've been playing Part Two for almost a year and they'd still be 7th level if we were doing it straight.