I'm at 42 now, just playing my character normally. I still have a lot left to do with this character, but I wouldn't be surprised if I never hit 60, as most of the skills I use are averaging out at around the 70 range.

How many hours on your 75 char?

My main char got to around level 55 the vanilla way, but by that point, leveling was so incredibly slow that it was no longer worth bothering with the vanilla way. None of the skills I was actually using were contributing to leveling anymore. Either maxed at 100, or over 90 and extremely hard to level further (stuff like blocking and light armor take forever to get anywhere). So I thought I'd do some cheap pet tricks with the skills I didn't use much, like healing and several others. The tedium of blowing hours doing those stupid pet tricks just to gain a fraction of an inch on the level meter, quickly convinced me that doing them solely for the purpose of raising your level, is the mission of a TFI (total F'ing idiot).

Still having some content left to go, and not satisfied with the lousy way Beth had neglected character leveling past 50, I got the Uncapper mod which allows your skills to continue on past 100. This started the levels moving again, at a fairly reasonable pace for that point in the game- gaining a level still took a fair amount of time, but at least it didn't take *weeks* of constant play to get just 1 level, like it would have without the mod. Still, even with that mod, by the time I finished most of the game content on that char, I was only at level 65.

The thought of re-griniding out mega [censored]-tons of dungeons and stuff I'd already finished, over and over, just to get those last 16 character levels, was more than I cared to even contemplate. It was already getting boring by that time, and the months of pointless and repetitive re-grinding it would take to get those last 16 levels? I think not. 65 is where she'll stay.

I thought that was what I was referring to.

I've done it with a light armor/one-handed/illusion/sneak Altmer.
It took me forever, & by the time I was level 70 or so I pretty much had to abandon all my illusion spells other than invisibility, because they just stopped working.
It was kinda fun, but it's not something I'd go out of my way to do again.
The point where I had to start grinding the rest of my skills, after I maxed the ones I generally used was incredibly dull, & I just stopped enjoying it.

I would have gotten the Respite perk in the restoration tree and not gone up that far into alteration, but yeah, pretty solid.

Well rested bonus is from sleeping in a bed that you own, generally in your houses.

Level 79 with my do it all main char on 360 => grinding.

level 81? Hell I haven't even got to level 30 yet.

This, the highest level i've been able to get to is like 27? i think. after i do like one of the main guilds to go through, i have a hard time finding more stuff that makes sense for them to do so i start new characters all the time.

Me, twice, and the second time included mods that slowed down skill gains considerably, and it was still nothing extraordinary.

Clearly many of you people have lives though, so this is an inherently unfair contest.

I've gotten a character to level 50 doing nothing but side quests and radiant quests.

I'm in my upper 20s right now with my latest character and just killed my first dragon not long ago.

My advice for people who keep stopping in the 30s or close to it. Go to towns and just talk to people, and do a bit of random wondering. You'll be surprised at how many levels you can get without doing a single "main" questline.

Since when is playing normally the "hard way"?

Since people starting writing mods and using console commands. Perhaps I should have used the words "the correct way".

My highest level character was 48th. Mid forties seems to be about how far I get before wanting to start over.

My first ps3 char made it to 81 (no cheats) But the lag made me delete him. when Bethesda fixed the ps3 version I repurchased my game and cheated via the (Spoiler) oghma infinum cheat.

I have done that for two characters, maximizing the speed using

1. skill trainers, paralyze and pickpocket
2. zero cost equipment for spells and then grinding it out.

I have found destruction and restoration to be one of the slowest skills to level while pickpocket is the fastest.

It is possible to level 10-15 levels in a single session using trainers and pickpocket, where the 5 trained levels and levels from pickpocket drove you to the next level where you can repeat the same. This obviously applies best at low levels.

I have never taken a character past 50. By then i have usually done everything i want to do and/or tired of the gameplay.

I RP my characters, so it would make no sense if I had maxed out magic on my Nord warrior. I respect people who can get to 81 the hard way, but I just don't see a reason to

I ended up at level 60-something with my first or second character, but I have never reached 81. I prefer to not raise all the skills.

Nahh sounds boring... Besides I RP so wouldn't make much sense to be lvl 81 with 100000000000 septims in the bank.

The maximum I got was level 50 without using any cheat. Bethesda did a good job since it's the level I got while cleaning most of the "appropriate" content for this character. I calculated that the level I can reach without grinding any "inappropriate" (from a RP point of view) skill is 55, maybe 56 if I add all skill books and skill quest rewards, so it's the level I aim for my new character.

I don't think I will ever reach the lvl 81 without cheating since if one day I use enough mods (and expansion/dlc) to considerably increase the content available for one character, I'll probably use a "slows skill progression mod" rather than increasing my level further.

My play time right now is - 188.05.23 lol

188 hrs to reach level 75 ? you were fast to use an euphemism if you've played it all the "right way" i've left my main character at the same level with at least 230-240 hrs of gameplay.

It seems feasible to get to level 75 in 188 hours. There's so many tricks and accidental exploits that you just gotta have the gold and know all the tricks, ways things work, and the exploits and you will get to a high level fast. Bound Bow is probably the most obvious example of something you can exploit.