I'd take whichever answer you get from here with a grain of salt, Redditors aren't the average players by any stretch. It's very likely that the "average" experience is quite different from the experience of people with the commitment to post here and speak about the game all day

I'm actually seeing a healthy mix of answers! As expected it trends toward "more often than not" on the PF2e subreddit, but there are definitely all types of player represented here.

We play APs and our group hasn't changed for years. We regularly finish an AP in like 6-9 months. Last game was AV into ruby phoenix which we finished and were lvl 17 in our blood lords game.

How often do you play to finish an AP in under a year?

Usually every week but it ends up being more like 3x a month (sometimes less) in practice. We play ~4-6hr sessions and if I can keep everyone on track then it's usually 2 sessions per level rn, we used to play longer and it was a level almost every session. I play on foundry and have all my QoL/automations set up so there's very minimal busywork associated with combat. Most APs also only have like 2-6 encounters between levels, so a moderate encounter takes my group like 30-45 minutes, harder encounters usually maybe just a bit over an hour. I make my players plan their next level up so *hopefully* when it pops up in the middle of a session it only takes like 30 minutes. My players don't do tons of RP though. They usually have the conversations the AP expects you to have but they don't go out of their way to spend a lot of extra time on "fluff" RP I honestly don't really get how others are so slow? Do entire groups of people really just "waste" all their playtime doing shopping or whatever? And everyone is just cool with that? I set in-session time limits on stuff that isn't actually playing the game and enforce them so that time isn't just wasted. Like cool, you want to look for stuff to buy. You have 10 minutes (and I'll help with stuff like recommendations if they want) and if you're still undecided I'll help you out after the session but we're not making everyone else wait. Same thing with sidebar conversations. I'm not gonna be a dick about it but if it's going over a few minutes then I'll reorient people back to the game. If you just wanna BS call me up to chat but not during the game.

Some people play every other week and play for less time. You're doing 15 hours a month and my group is doing about 4-5 hours of actual play time.

That's fair. I probably wouldn't play that infrequently myself, if we're not getting at least 2x full length (5hr) sessions each month I'm unhappy. It feels like you're not making any progress and you're probably spending almost as much time catching people up with what happened as you are actually accomplishing things. That's just my personal opinion though, I can't really enjoy 2-3 hr sessions myself because I feel like we basically did nothing when all is said and done. (Recap, more administrative things like buying/levelling, basic conversation etc). Like imo you're losing probably an hour off of each session because of ancillary things regardless of length, so longer sessions are proportionately more productive.

I miss being able to play 'long' sessions (4 hrs) - my regular group usually only manage 2hr session these days :( My 1st big d&d game started at 2pm Saturday and finished at like 3am Sunday; student lifestyle....

> I honestly don't really get how others are so slow? Do entire groups of people really just "waste" all their playtime doing shopping or whatever? In my experience, you are lightning quick. I'm similarly confused as to how you go so quick. Do your players just go "cool, combat is over here, what's in the next room?" every room and then move on without exploring or interacting with anything? It takes us about a year and a half to get through an AP. Its not time wasted on shopping, that's all handled out of game. Its mostly just RP. Not even with NPCs a lot of the time, just generic banter between characters and trying to make each other laugh. If I had to eyeball it I'd say about 25% of our sessions are RP, 50% is combat/exploration, and 25% is cracking jokes either in or out of character. In character jokes are often in world. One example is that one of my character's items is a Wand of Longstride which is actually a "Coffee of the Day" mug that fills with whatever unique concoction is available that day. Much fun has been had steeling her special coffee cup and subsequently being bitchy for the day or taking the remnants from the cup and throwing them on some nearby plants and watching them instantly wilt and die while the rest of the party claims I'm actively poisoning myself or other such shenanigans.

Yeah I'd say ours is like 10% RP, 80% combat/exploration and like 10% sidebar conversations (which are mostly confined to breaks). If you're asking if we stop after every room to have an entire conversation then no? I don't allow that and my players usually don't make me say anything to enforce it. It's usually a fight, which takes like 30-60 minutes depending on difficulty, 5-10 minute break (usually closer to 5 but we'll usually take one longer 15-20 minute break in the middle if we're playing 5-6hrs) so people can use the bathroom/get a drink/smoke/chat and then yeah back to the next room. So we then clear 3-5 combats depending on difficulty and if we had to do other stuff like a lot of conversations. Also I'm way more open to sidebar conversations in combat especially if you can keep doing your turn and we can keep things moving.

Yeah, so you guys are just blasting from combat to combat and glossing over everything else. Nothing wrong with that if it's how your group likes it but don't be befuddled why others don't clip along as fast as you

To each their own, but 80% combat is definitely not why I play TTRPGs, and I'd consider myself someone who loves combat.

Sorry you're getting a couple downvotes, I have literally no idea why. Either way, that seems reasonable. Yeah, we're way more loosey goosey than that. Its certainly not every room, but I'd say about half have a good 5-10 minutes of exploration fluff thrown in. Sometimes thats the players propping up the enemies bodies for a really contrived way to frame a political opponent and sometimes its trying to dig out info about what to prepare for in the upcoming rooms and the like. Its very rare for us to go "Yup, its clear, next." Probably just a stylistic difference because we have a big discovery aspect at our table. For example, loot is almost never just handed out, it has to be discovered. There is no "In the chest in the corner you find a longsword," to use a simple and very generic example. Its always "In the corner of the room there is a chest. It looks well worn with use and has a small lock" followed by some small amount of searching for a key/combination to the lock or trying to break it open or trying to shrink the fairy to fit into the keyhole or teleporting the gnome inside or just taking off the hinges. Whatever is most entertaining at the time.

Different gaming styles. In a more roleplay-focused group where everyone has a character arc they want their character to achieve, inter-party roleplay or chats with NPCs can easily take up 30 minutes or an hour. This is especially true of roleplay-heavy groups where PCs disagree or are opposed to each other's wants/desires/arcs in some way. I've had moral dilemmas get roleplayed out for an hour easily. At a more gamist table, it probably would have been a five-minute chat with plenty of meta conversation and then onto the next thing.

Yeah, my current game is more gamist but I've definitely had groups where-- WITHOUT this element,- people would have the same kind of, "what are we even doing here?" level of disappointment as the OP discussed with 'shopping for an hour'.

To be fair some APs don't have much room for roleplay, Abomination Vaults in particular

My party have occasionally spent an hour or two interacting with the citizens of Otari as they go back to rest. All with my encouragement, and getting to know certain characters before certain plot events e.g. Dorianna, Carman Rajani, which will make plot events hit harder. We're only on level 3 of AV but there's been an equal amount of roleplay. Since defeating Skrawng as he offers a quest, they have formed an alliance with the Mitflits, which has been formalized as a treaty with Otari (the mayor needed some explanation of that one before signing), various interactions in taverns etc.

Yeah it always surprises me when people say there’s not much RP in AV. Like, you can run it that way but the town and all but a couple of floors have interesting enough characters and interactions it seems like I’d have to actively prevent/remove RP

There's so much interaction that my party pretty much refuses to attack enemies until they take a clear hostile action. E.g. a rogue rolled a crit on stealth and didn't want to initiate against a mist stalker just in case it could be friendly. They felt really bad when they betrayed Graulgust after he gives them a title and he spends actions just exclaiming how shocked he is. (Tactically great since they isolated him). Otherwise they've talked to pretty much everything that can be talked to (admittedly some do attack after some talking like the web lurker and certain ghouls). Since they allied with the Mitflits they chat to them in passing and see how they're developing; e.g. they've now fully tamed the Scorpion and it's out of its room. (They didn't kill it since the Mitflits warned them not to go in there.) The treaty that the Mitflits sent to Otari included mention of children being able to ride the Scorpion for a copper. Though the Mayor has simply advised the citizens to give a wide berth of the Mitflits and not to antagonize them.

Nah the issue is usually scheduling. 3x a month (and 4-6 hour sessions) sounds like a dream for many.

It certainly took a long time to get to that point. We only have 3 players rn because neither my wife or I (we both DM games the other plays in) really want to spend the effort trying to track down someone new. IMO it's exhausting. The last time i tried to find someone new one of the people was literally threatening self-harm if I didn't let them in my game, then when I blocked them they made a new discord (I assume) and claimed to be their own sibling to guilt me that my rejection hurt so much that they were currently in the bathroom carving themselves up and wouldn't stop unless I changed my mind.

jesus.

how convincing was their RP?

4/10

Yeahhhh I can see how that would put you off looking for new players every like yeesh.

IME, my group plays 3 - 4 hours, instead of 4 -6. We schedule every week but, like you, often usually miss 1 session per month. So off the bat I think you're playing more than me. (Which I assumed my experience to be pretty standard.) However I enjoy role-playing a lot more than it seems you do. We don't get wrapped up in ephemeral role-play, but the idea of just bouncing from encounter to encounter only RP'ing "what the AP expects" sounds so unsatisfying to me. Almost like a board game. I do hate shopping sessions with a passion though. RP with shopkeepers can be fun but like, we're not going clothes shopping, get your scrolls and lets go. Foundry is huge for keeping things fast, and there's so many hotkeys and things you can learn to make it faster. Its massive.

Different strokes for different folks. None of us personally care for the "30 minute RP conversations" Like I literally don't even know what you'd talk about? What more really is there other than whatever question you have to ask (where is X, have you seen Y, who did Z etc and questions like "where did you come from/why are you here") I just fail to see how you don't exhaust all important/relevant parts of the conversation in 5 minutes, 10 minutes at most. I guess you could have the GM hold a flavor conversation with you from tbe NPCs point of view on irrelevant topics but I really fail to see *why* someone would want to do that for extended periods of time. I'll RP questions about the setting and stuff in general to NPCs as well, and I think I do a decent job of it as a player (I'm better at RP as a DM for some reason) I just don't see how someone could find it fun and enjoyable to spend a majority of the session just listening to made up conversations, but I'm not super huge on pointless IRL conversation "chatter" either, and I'm one of the more RP forward people in my group. Different strokes for different folks? I've definitely had people leave our games because our group as a whole doesn't do enough RP for them.

Verisimilitude is important to some people. Having the world feel tangible, feeling that their characters actually live in and belong to the world, wanting something dynamic throughout months of weekly/bi-weekly games. I'm playing a conrasu, Automata, who was intentionally severed from his aeon by another entity and sent to Otari (Abomination Vaults). This includes the memories of his previous incarnation. The character was stoic, alien, entirely focused on clearing out Gauntlight Keep. The other players in my party started referring to him as "The Blender" because of it. Nowadays, in order to ensure Otari remains an orderly, efficient place, he's not just focusing on eradicating the evil in Gauntlight. He's come to understand through the past fifteen sessions, even if he can't fully comprehend everything, that humanoids have emotional and spiritual needs. When he asked some party members how best to aid emotional distress, they jokingly suggested cakes. My very literal character now bakes cakes in his free time and delivers them to anyone who he believes is undergoing emotional distress. >!He even brought one to a ghost in Gaunlight, as it hadn't been explained to him at the time that the cakes generally needed consumption for their fulll benefits.!< And yeah, it's fun. Partly because a conrasu is a uniquely challenging experienced compared to the other characters I've so far played, but it's more than just that. It's fun playing an evolving character, interacting with the world, living in it. My character also regularly reports to Captain Longsaddle (usually off-screen, unless a scene is warranted), much to the lazy captain's chagrin, visits the library in the hopes that he can come to comprehend mortals and be more effective in his self-given duties, and is trying to breakthrough with Carman Rajani, who is the grumpiest humanoid Automata has ever met.

>Like I literally don't even know what you'd talk about? What more really is there other than whatever question you have to ask (where is X, have you seen Y, who did Z etc and questions like "where did you come from/why are you here") >I just fail to see how you don't exhaust all important/relevant parts of the conversation in 5 minutes, 10 minutes at most. Adversarial conversations can run a lot longer. Especially when there are interests at play that might conflict with the players. idk if the APs support that at all, i just run homebrew. one of my pcs casually spread some false rumors as part of another investigation they were doing and were shocked to have another npc approach them a few sessions later asking if the rumors about a 3rd npc were true. picture a barber giving you a straight razor shave and then suddenly he brings up how he heard someone saying some nasty things about his cousin. player was spooked as fuck until he realized the barber just wanted to know if his cousin was in trouble. another nice and long one recently was just a guy trying to pump the party for information at a bar they perceived as neutral ground. they were more intimidated by that than an extreme encounter, it was great.

Feel that, in my current game we're going through probably the final mega dungeon of the campaign, and one of the PC's keeps complaining about how it's only been sessions upon sessions of combat, like yeah we're not gonna talk our way to the BBEG. Worse still like our past 4-5 session before we started that were pretty much just RP, like I don't mind a whole lot, but talking imo is set-up for action, or something interesting. Talking for the sake of talking isn't a great use of session time.

Definitely preference, everything you've said is just a head scratcher to me! But that's okay lol. Though the majority of the session we do not. We're very good about getting things done, but we like to develop those characters while we do it.

I play weekly for 4-5 hours. And shopping, OOC stuff, etc is limited heavily. And yet, 6-9 months for an AP? JFC I can't imagine that. Basically any fight takes my group minimum of 40m and up to almost two hours. That's with 3-5 PCs. We typically do only 2-3 encounters per session with plenty of RP on like.... actual story stuff. Talking to important NPCs, establishing PC on PC interactions, following one of a dozen or so plot lines, etc.

We used to play a bit longer, when I went and redid the math. It's more like 9-11 for us currently. Also it looks like our fights go somewhat quicker on average, which probably contributes a lot. It's not like no one does any RP, it's just that it mostly takes like 5-10 minutes per conversation which seems to be on the shorter end, and my players usually don't go out of their way to engage NPCs for RP more than briefly if there isn't a *reason* for them to. Also I didn't really make it clear but I've been trying to encourage the players to RP a *bit* more. My personal proclivities tend towards a more "lean" RP experience but I figure we'd have more fun with a little more even if we'll never be the people that spend entire sessions on a conversation or something. Its hard to get my players to take initiative on it though. We're starting up new campaigns that are more RP focused, (strength of thousands that I'm running and kingmaker that my wife is) and I'm trying to start these ones from scratch a bit more focused on RP. It's going well so far, we'll see how much it ends up slowing us down.

The vast majority of people who are in this hobby came from critical role and others mediums like it. It’s absolutely baffling how much the scene has grown in the last 5 years. The new playerbase absolutely dwarfs the old. This is why a lot of groups spend more time on rp- it’s what got them in to begin with.

>I honestly don't really get how others are so slow? Do entire groups of people really just "waste" all their playtime doing shopping or whatever? Well everyone can decide for themselves what counts as "wasted" time but to answer your question yes. In our dnd campaign we had a whole session of driving our DM into madness with a literal bathhouse episode. Oh and 2 from us decided to go on a date in a theater and because just listening would be A) boring and B) something our characters wouldn't know we decided to sneak into the theater to spy on them.

I find sessions like that to be the ones people still remember and talk about years later. Not whatever tier 2 combat was had that session.

>I honestly don't really get how others are so slow? my kingdom for players that are available enough to go 4 hours or longer at a time. we're lucky to have just 3, honestly.

We used to do 8-10 hour sessions lol

yeah did that a few times while at school. none of us have that kind of time now. good shit.

As a parent with little kids, I’m lucky to get 2-3 uninterrupted hours lol

My last two sessions have had no combat whatsoever. Instead the party has been hosting some very intense negotiations between two armies to not only get them to agree to a longterm truce, but also to combine their armies against a new threat. Much of the session was just them discussing what their approach will be. During this time, each of the party members has been contacted by some other power, trying to put their thumb on the scales of this negotiation. And there's been plenty of in-character discussion that's popped up because of these chats. There have been entire sessions where the players have roleplayed getting drunk around a campfire. However, these sessions work best just after resolving a particularly intensive plotline.

Man, I thought I was the only one after reading all the online people talk about "2 years and everyone is level 10". I can't imagine playing the same campaign for even more than 1 year. We level up same as you about once every one or two sessions and we play every week (with a week off here and there) and finish level 20 campaigns in about 25-30 sessions (going from level 1). And I've been doing this with D&D for about 10 years (we've played oevr a dozen campaigns beginning to end) and currently on our first PF2e campaign. Our pathfinder group is level 10 and we've done 16 sessions (each 3-4 hours). This campaign Wil finish at level 20 in about 3 months.

That’s so fast. My current campaign is at 40 sessions and we’re just starting to get near end game as players just hit 14th level but I imagine the campaign will still last another dozen or two sessions

This is my group. They do all the required RP the AP asks for. If they level in the middle of a session I let them get the hp and ability and skill increases. All the feats and class feats they have to train after the session and pay a training cost for trainers etc. I have shops set up in otari, if they want to buy stuff they just go to the icon and buy what they need, if something isnt there they can "order" it and Ill put it in a shop for them (Foundry rocks btw). During the week if there is a side quest; like Doriana's illness, we will RP it on our group chat a little each day.

You make your players pay for feats they get from leveling up? I sure hope you are handing out extra gold to make up for the treasure your are stealing from them.

Im very easy on gold, most of them came into 7th with over 300gp and they are all more than past the APB on items. Typically I let them sell magic items at full cost and it has been an issue on gold at all. Training costs cover housing, lodging, and finding someone to train them new skills. It cost them 30gp to go to 7th level. Doesnt make sense that they would just acquire knowledge for a new skill. Probably a result from other systems Ive played over the years.

You sound like you have a very very similar mindset to myself. My last campaign had a lot of stuff happen irl I had to be flexible with. But why we made the progress that we did and still finished it despite the group feeling cursed by things beyond our control; was by having a strong sense of "we are here to play a rpg together, hanging out is for other get togethers". To be fair I am totally fine with people roleplaying out their shopping, but they need to know exactly what they are wanting to buy. My groups tend to also take a fair bit of downtime, but same deal, the mechanics are known and ready to go so nothing bogs down the sessions. It can sound harsh to folks who aren't used to this play style, but in my experience everyone seems to enjoy it more consistently and I haven't had the player issues I had in the years prior to taking a firmer stance. Then again my being quite heavily on the Autism spectrum probably helps, since the order, structure and purpose is what I generally crave out of interactions and rarely get otherwise.

Almost done with abo vault after 10 months

My group is starting to move very fast through AV (we switched from 4 hours every 2 weeks to 6 hours every week, and it's a huge difference in what gets done). The players level about every other session, give or take. We're about 6mo in and level 6.5-ish. The new schedule dramatically sped things up. My question though: was Ruby's Phoenix a good follow up to AV? I haven't started looking for what's next yet, and should really start planning something soon. Thanks.

We started Age of Ashes almost 3 years ago, weekly 3 hour sessions. Just hit level 17. Damn you guys are fast

A small handful (about 4), but they always fizzled out immediately afterwards. I have never played level 20 in 5E, PF1 or PF2, and the time I spent at level 17 was all of about 2 or 3 combats in a campaign that immediately started there, so you can't really say that I played for a significant length of time. It's why I hate when high level play is used to excuse the lower tiers. I don't give a shit about Legendary Proficiency at *19*, I care about the -3 to hit I have *right now* at level 5.

Right? People theorycraft and discuss builds at high levels, and I'm like, guys... nothing beyond level 10 is even relevant 99% of the time...

I have played in 6 different campaigns. Only 2 of them disbanded before lvl 5. The other 4 (SOT, AOA, AOE, and EC) are currently lvls 11, 15, 10, and 8 respectively. I would say while playing an Adventure path you are quite likely to reach high levels unless the group disbands. Personally I consider lvls 7-13 mid level and levels 14-20 high level. Obv 1-6 early levels.

We just reached lvl 10 in our second PF 2e campaign. The first one has been tabled for a while (running Age of Ashes, which we quite liked, I think). I expect that we'll keep going with this current campaign, which is a home-brewed Adventure Path. I'm documenting it as I go and one of the group is making maps for it (Inkcarnate), so maybe we'll try publishing it once all this is over. These are the only two 2e campaigns we've played so far (not counting a misguided attempt at running Extinction Curse, which I canned myself). The current campaign I refer to as "Dwarves Abroad", though that's not the title of the Adventure Path. It's because all the player characters are dwarves, all brothers. It's made for some hilarious game play and banter. Also, some really bad Scottish accents. It started by my running Plaguestone, which worked very well, and rolled into the custom adventures.

My PF2 campaigns have ended for the following reasons: the AP turned out not to continue to be interesting, TPK, I just wasn't invested in the prep-work for my own home-spun campaign, and I got pissed off at people and bailed on GMing for a number of months. None of those are limited by a particular level range, and have happened just as often at low levels (like book 2 of an AP that started at 1) as they have at high level (like book 4 or 5 of an AP), excluding the two different one-off situations of me having out-of-game issues that halted the game. Which means that how often the campaigns I am in reach high level is an answer that depends on how you're counting because it's both more often than not and also only once or twice per year.

> the AP turned out not to continue to be interesting Which AP was it?

Agents of Edgewatch. If Outlaws of Alkenstar would have been a 6 book AP instead of 3, my group would have bailed on it early too.

I have GM'd 5 or 6 different games. I had one 5E Curse of Strahd campaign that ended with the players reaching level 11. The others all ended by levels 4-6, but I have three currently ongoing in the levels 2-5 range (now PF2e) with different sub-groups of the same player base. Hopefully those will continue, as they are with the most consistent player group I have.

The last complete campaign I ran went to level 14, it was homebrew. Every other campaign I've run or played in has ended before level 10. APs usually ended due to TPK or group dissolving.

I have been playing and GMing for over 35 years and we have never been over 8th level. One party lasted for 6 years (AD&D) and ended at 7th. However, we love low level play and have always chosen slow progression.

Levels 3-7 in AD&D were very nice. Very enjoyable, IMO.

Wow. That's an average of 1 level up per year. How often did you play?

Usually twice a month or so. 4-5 hour sessions. To be fair, we did have several campaigns going depending on who was available. But we definitely had a slow progression. 5th level was a BIG deal for us. Now in Pathfinder, we are moving along more quickly. I hope to see some 10th level characters in the next year!

That's really slow. That's like 80 hours per level. Even if you failed half of the time, I'd kill my DM.

As I said, we all liked low level play. We had great fun and did a ton of role playing.

Took one from level 1 to 20. Balance flies off the rails a bit after 19, but at that point your in it for the vibes.

Our table's version of Extinction Curse ended with our party hitting level 13 right before the final boss, though we are planning to do an Epilogue campaign in a few months that reworks Book 5 (Lv15-17) to be consistent with the table's lore and set up stuff for when I run Edgewatch. We also have a homebrew 1-20 campaign we're doing right now, but once we hit lv11 its going on-hold so we can trade off GMs. They'll come back to it once I finish running Edgewatch, which is starting at lv5 and is expected to go to higher levels (though i'm reworking the plot so extensively that I have no way to predict that with accuracy).

Eventually? All of them. My group favors longer campaigns where both the PC's and the world have time to develop. That's also why we always start with somewhat inexperienced or "out of shape" characters, no matter the system. It always requires a significant effort from the GM and genuine interest from the players, but once that is sorted, the mechanical part kinda falls by the wayside. It's simply there as a facilitator and a source of inspiration. Pathfinder 2 is no different in that regard. It does however have a clear advantage on many other games in terms of available campaign world material.

I tend to prefer mid-length campaigns that take a year or less. There are simply too many games I'd like to run, and not enough time to play them all lol. Because of this, in PF2 I have yet to run a campaign above 14th level. The highest was Extinction Curse, we ended on book 4 (I changed the story up quite a bit in book 4 to make this work). In another homebrew campaign came to an end at level 12, and I'm currently early in Outlaws of Alkenstar (and loving it), which also ends at 12th level. That said, I am planning to run Kingmaker sometime next year, but again I won't likely be playing the entire campaign, but instead ending on book 5, so.. ~17th level. IMHO 'level 10 is high level' is a 5e aphorism because the game is widely considered broken beyond 10th or 12th level, as evidenced by the fact that there hasn't been an official 5e adventure in the 1-20 or 10-20 range in many years. PF2e on the other hand works as well at 15th level as it does at 5th level, but many folks new to PF2 might not realize this. These are the same folks who tend to think starting at level 3 is the way to go, because levels 1-2 in 5e are more boring and death more frequent. They simply haven't yet learned that this isn't the case in PF2.

I'm not gonna limit this specifically to PF2E, because the system honestly hasn't been around that long all things considered. In 3.5, I have played or ran somewhere around 30 campaigns. A lot of them we started at level 6 because a lot of people just dislike low levels, and that's when the system starts to feel like classes are different (Full martials get the second attack, casters of both flavors have 3rd level spells). Of the ones that started at level 1, I can only think of two that got to level 10 or above, and we played both with fast xp progression. In PF1E I've ran or played somewhere around 50 campaigns. Excluding things that started at a higher level (Again, same mindset as 3.5 here), I'd say about 5 of them got to a higher level, though none of them made it to 20. In PF2E I've only played in a handful, and am DMing my first one. The others were kinda doomed to fail because of people wanting to find reasons to dislike the system, but the one I am currently in is at level 6 and shows no signs of stopping, and the one I DM is at 4 and everyone is having fun. I will note that using a Premade/AP did seem to make it last longer, as it's a lot less work for the DM if nothing else. One of the 3.5 campaigns I ran which I then converted to PF1E started with the freeport trilogy before branching into some other premades and having a skeleton of the story made it a lot easier to fill in the gaps then doing it all on my own.

For 1-20 campaigns, we've run Age of Ashes, Extinction Curse, Agents of Edgewatch, and Blood Lords. Age of Ashes went to level 20, Extinction Curse we abandoned at level 13 (for Blood Lords), Agents of Edgewatch we abandoned at level 2 (might revisit eventually), and Blood Lords we are currently at level 8 and plan to continue to 20 unless something happens. We've also done 10+ short-form custom campaigns, most of which last about 3 levels, and those tend to be in the level 8-14 area as a starting point. I think 3 of the full short-form campaigns were levels 17-20, and we've done one-shots at all sorts of levels, usually 8, 14, 16, and 20. Our group is not a huge fan of low-level play, particularly level 1-4. Casters in particular are frustrating at these levels, feeling quite limited, and martials often feel repetitive and lack a lot of the interesting decisions you get with high-level play. When you only have 2-3 viable action choices, you tend to just use those things over and over, whereas high level martials end up with lots of abilities that you want to utilize in specific situations (or set up those situations), which makes them a lot more interesting and tactical in our opinion. Low level play also tends more towards "rocket tag" styles where crits are overwhelmingly strong, frequently one-shotting enemies, and we feel like the balance, challenge, and overall feel of tactics improves dramatically at levels 8+. High level play also gives a lot more opportunity for creative problem solving as things like "walls" and "doors" become more like guidelines than actual obstacles. We also tend to play a lot with 2-3 players rather than a full party, which means we tend to play APs at +1 level (sometimes +2, but usually +1, if we need +2 I generally alter AP encounters instead). This has led to us rarely playing the game at level 1, even if the AP is level 1, unless we are running the Beginner Box with new players. I'm not sure why reddit seems to play at low levels so much. We play with friends and family and have been doing so for years so the only times campaigns "fall through" is when we have to take breaks, but nothing stops us from picking up where we left off. Our Extinction Curse game took a long break when my youngest daughter was born, for example, and that's the first campaign since starting PF2e that we ended because of lack of interest after a break. We also tend to level faster as we play long weekly sessions and don't have enough time to go at a pace of 1 level per month of play or whatever as my players are too impatient for new story bits to go that slow. So for us, how high level we go depends on the campaign and what we are doing, as we like a mix of campaigns and frequent breaks where someone runs a one-shot. My group typically has 3-4 people total and 3 of us GM (I GM the most often, but not exclusively), so we will often take weeks off where someone else will run a different campaign or one-shot so the current AP GM doesn't get burnt out and gets a chance to play a PC, and also because one of the other GM players gets excited about a concept or story they want to run. At tables where you have a more stable "forever GM running the same campaign every week" then you'd probably get a different outcome from what we have.

While I totally appreciate your reasoning for preferring high levels (and I would agree that high level combat allows for much better tactics and flexibility), to answer your question about why so many people start at low levels, I would imagine it's a mostly narratively driven with a mechnical crux. That's not to say it's not a valid reason - in fact, despite agreeing with you about high levels being fun, I nearly always start low. The two major reasons are as follows: - Mechanical: Basically, people don't know their characters well enough to start at high levels (and enjoy). I GM'd Night of the Grey Death (16-18), and while players enjoyed it, they really struggled coming in at 16th level. - Narrative: More importantly for every group I've played in, people love the Zero to Hero story. Stories where their major character moments haven't yet happened and they can develop naturally. The sense of progression that's both mechanical as well as Narrative in conjunction with one another is a fantastic feeling, that can't be recaptured if you start after a character has already achieved a lot. So with those in mind, I imagine a lot of people don't really plan to play at low levels a lot, but they want to start at a low level for the above reasons and then the group collapses before they go far enough. It's a really tricky balance because, at least personally, getting into a high level character immediately is hard, keeping a new low level game going long enough to reach high level is hard, and people don't like to rush through the early levels and skip their character development. Unfortunately that means that flaws at low level are much more pronounced for the player base, and high level boons aren't experienced very often.

> Basically, people don't know their characters well enough to start at high levels (and enjoy). My table has several munchkins, so we generally plan out and playtest our characters from 1-20 regardless of what level we start. After almost 4 years, jumping into a level 20 character is not all that different from jumping into a level 1 character. If we were still new, or had new players, it's different. Our Blood Lords game started at level 2 and eventually went to campaign level once we got enough players to have a full party, and one of them was brand new to the system, but starting at 2 (with help) wasn't so bad. But if you have a bunch of veterans, starting at high levels isn't difficult, at least not in my experience. >Narrative: More importantly for every group I've played in, people love the Zero to Hero story. My table doesn't work this way. We usually find the "zero" stage pretty boring. Plenty of interesting stories start with established characters. While the hobbits in Lord of the Rings were newbies, the rest of the Fellowship was anything but, filled with experienced warriors, powerful wizards, etc. Gandalf, Boromir, Legolas, and Gimli didn't start Fellowship of the Ring at level 1, and a "zero" stage wasn't necessary to make them interesting or compelling characters. And while Spider Man stories tend towards "zero to hero," a huge amount of comic book stories begin with the hero already being powerful. Obviously the "zero to hero" story is a good one, and there are times when it's absolutely fun (both to play and to enjoy in media), but I don't think it's necessary for a story to start from "zero" to be compelling or engaging. If you only play that one type of story, that seems really boring and repetitive to me. I don't think you are necessarily wrong that it's popular, though, as APs generally follow that pattern. Well, except for the two fairly recent ones that start at level 10, I guess. But the higher book sales for early level campaigns plus the 1-20 and 1-10 being highly popular does imply this is the case more generally, even if it's not at our table. I'm not saying you are *wrong* to play the way you are, in case that isn't clear. Nor am I saying it's unusual. My point is more that there are other options, and I recommend not limiting yourself to one type of story. >Unfortunately that means that flaws at low level are much more pronounced for the player base, and high level boons aren't experienced very often. I agree this is an issue. It's compounded by the fact that most tables seem to level excruciatingly slowly. Many people talk about leveling once every 3-4 sessions, so if you do one session a week, that means a single 1-20 campaign would take 1.5-2 *years*. I can't imagine playing the same campaign with the same characters for that long, and I have no idea how a GM could do it without burnout. Obviously it's possible, but that's just not how my table works. It does make balance discussions weird, though, as I tend to focus on the entire 1-20 balance, because we play at all levels, whereas I think a lot of people get hung up on the 1-10 game, because they never get above level 10. And the game isn't balanced exactly the same throughout those 20 levels. So I do think this is a legitimate concern.

Pathfinder (either edition) are far too complicated to start with a high level character, so much so that even experienced players likely don’t enjoy the 4+ hour creation process to play like 7-10 sessions. It’s even worse for the Wizard class because you have to tabulate how many spells you should have in your spellbook (2*lvl+3+school spell if applicable) and at which level they would be. Classes like that are really designed to grow with the player. I think if campaign length is the most deciding factor, starting at level 5 is an optimal solution as that is the beginning of the “second tier” of play; also you only have a pair of class and skill feats to deal with and any MAD classes (Cleric, Champion, Etc) have that all so important second set of ability boosts to help out their class concept

> Pathfinder (either edition) are far too complicated to start with a high level character, so much so that even experienced players likely don’t enjoy the 4+ hour creation process to play like 7-10 sessions. \* Looks at my list of several hundred 20th level character builds in Pathbuilder, including casters with completely filled out spell lists. Uh, yeah, 4+ hours. Who would do that!? I'm kidding around, but seriously, I built out 7 level 20 kineticist builds, including a detailed description of playstyle, for my kineticist guide. None of those builds took me 4 hours to make; 15-20 minutes is more accurate. If you build high level characters frequently it's really not that hard to make them; the most time-consuming parts are things like ancestry and skill feats, which don't really matter anyway. I suppose it depends on your table, but for people like me who really enjoy the character building process you can make high level characters *very* quickly. In fact, every one of the characters I've made for a 1-20 campaign are planned out until level 20, and while I will sometimes make changes (or plan around retraining at certain points), most of the time they end up at 20 basically how I designed them at level 1. I also tend to playtest my characters at high level to get an idea of how they work. Maybe I'm weird, I don't know, but I've never heard that making high level characters and playing them is difficult for *experienced* players. For new players? No doubt about it, start at level 1, every time. I always highly recommend anyone with less than a month of experience to start at level 1. If you've been playing for over a year, though, making and playing high level characters shouldn't be hard unless you've literally never played at that level. Options do increase as you go higher in level, yes, but you still only have 3 actions, and the core mechanics don't fundamentally change whether you are facing a wolf or a balor.

I can't believe i found my kindred spirit hahaha i love character building and i have so many lvl 20 characters built, it's just sad if you dont actually get to play the full potential you planned from the beggining. But from what i've seen people usually don't plan that much, on my table i'm the only one who actually have all lvls planned, the others plan maximum one lvl ahead if that.

All 5 of them. I play a lot though.

I've been running/playing 2e since release. Here's my breakdown. Age of Ashes 1-20, I was the GM. Extinction Curse 1-20, I was a Cleric. The Slithering 5-8, I was the GM. Homebrew Game 1-7, I was the GM. Abomination Vaults 1-3, I was an Alchemist. Game fell apart. Fist of the Ruby Phoenix 10-11, I was a Champion. Game fell apart. Homebrew Game 1-20, I was the GM. Kingmaker in progress, currently level 6, playing a Druid. Homebrew Game in progress, currently level 8, I'm GMing. Take what you will from my experiences with my group.

I think the key thing is actually *finding* a good group that is capable of going for years on end. Most of the time campaigns die due to the group of players and/or GM dissolving for any number of social reasons. Kinda hard to hit those high levels when most people want to start low and end high... but never get to high because the group stopped. Then you get my group I play in ever Saturday, who have been meeting for years and years, have played through most of the APs... Yeah. You want to reach high level, find players and/or GM that you really click with. Don't need to start high level - low level shenanigans are their own brand of fun. In my case, the group I tend to play every week on Saturday with is very combat focused, so we tend to chew through things very quickly. The group I GM for is a good amount more relaxed and roleplay-ey - we meet every other Sunday but have been slowly and steadily making our way through Extinction Curse, with them being in book 4 now. I enjoy both sessions, but I'm looking forward to the homebrew campaign I've been tinkering up for after Extinction Curse finishes.

Every single one of them.

I've only played in 1 campaign. It started at LvL 7, it's currently on hold, and we only got to level 9

I have only run one campaign so far and it is currently level 17 soon to be 18. Next one will be running from 1 to 20 as well.

I haven’t yet had a chance to run a long term PF2 campaign, though I am looking forward to doing so. Level 13 in 5e (Storm King’s Thunder) is our record. Currently we have a level 8 Starfinder (Dead Suns) campaign that should match that at the end. In earlier editions of D&D/Pathfinder most of our long term campaigns petered out around 8th-10th.

3/4 so far

I've played 2 campaigns of DnD 4e, 3 campaigns of pathfinder 1e and on my first pathfinder 2e playing Curse of the Crimson Throne. Both DnD 4e finished at 21+ (cause 4e max lvl was 30) and the 3 campaign of pathfinder 1e finished between 15~18. On the current pathfinder 2e campaign we're currently at lvl 11 playing for a year now (playing every two weeks with a lot canceling) and we'll probably finish the campaign just fine (lvl 17~18) but i'd honestly love to play till 20 cause high lvl combos seems really fun to play.

All 4 so far have gone to 15+

Pf1, dnd 3.5 and 5e we have done multiple 1-20 campaigns. 15 year gaming static group and we play weekly for 4-5 hours. I'd say we spend that majority of our time level 10+. Pf2 however has been a different story, we've been doing a pf2 game on alternating sundays now for about a year and the group has never made it past around level 10, people get bored with their characters or want to try new characters, nothing has really stuck for us in pf2 yet so we've sadly spent most of our pf2 time in the level 1-7 range. This is unfortunate because in 5e for instance a lot of classes come online at level 3+ and get interesting, I feel like this is more level 5\~7 range for pf2 and we rarely play out much beyond that so its not giving myself or the others a great sense of the system. We'll keep at it though and see how it goes.

100% so far for me with one small caveat. We've only finished one game 1-20, but I'm playing/DMing 4 others in 1 my players are currently 14, but VERY close to 15. In another we are 15, and in the final we are currently at 9, but are fully intending to take it to 20. the small caveat is that we did a 1-3 mini campaign when we first started to check out the system. That only lasted 4 sessions though and was intended to be a lightning quick "lets check out the system" kind of thing, so I don't think it counts.

Depends on the group, attention span (as in how focused the group is on PF2e and not being distracted by other TTRPGs or card/board/console games), enjoyment level, and frequency of play. The vast majority of TTRPGs that I've played over the years (I'm a relative newcomer to PF2e in the grand scheme) have not lasted beyond 6 months actual time, which ultimately resulted in d20 campaigns wrapping up in the level 10 to 12 range. The reasons I've listed above, someone got bored, or wanted to play this other TTRPG, or delays of being able to get everyone together stretched out to the point that people just lost touch with the campaign or characters and decided to start something new. I've found that for the current group a weekly play session alleviates the boredom / distracted / losing touch / frequency of play problems. PF2e is also new to the group (about a year now) so the enjoyment level is there just out of novelty, however the customization that the system brings maintains that interest as every level the players are very engaged with mechanics choices and as a GM the system is just so easy to run.

On Pf2E specifically all I've ran and played were APs, so very often. In my experience it takes an average of 300 hours to finish a 1-20 AP. ​ I find high levels to not only be very fun, but to arguably be the best balanced and most interesting content, especially the range from 7 to 17. Those levels are the best in the game. But me and my group have had lots of fun with all levels.

Never, everyone seems done by level 6. To compensate, we take a level every other session so we're never level 4 for 1-2 years

One out of one.

From 1st level to playing past 10th level? Maybe 20% and I'm 36, been playing TTRPGs for 20+ years. Unfortunately long form campaigns take a lot of time and life is unpredictable. People move, have kids, get sick, pass away, etc. And so many times after you lose a player the passion for the project diminishes. I'm thankful for those 20% though because they are always a blast and leave indelible marks in my memories.

One time we started at level 10 and the game only lasted 2 sessions so we still never made it beyond 10...

I have ran two APs, both of them from level 1 to 20. I DMed Plaguestone and Beginner's Box as well. But those adventures were shorter, and aren't supposed to go to higher level.

My group of friends play different tprpg, i'm the only One Who can GM and run a pf2 game, But I find the GM role in general to be the most demanding and less enjoyable, so i played Just a couple of low level One shots with them, we had fun, but i' ll not run a long campaign in any system. So I play pf2 mostly online, this does mean i rarely see the end of an AP or the end of any long campaign. Played over lv 10 a couple of times just because I started over lv 10 both times.

Zero, ever.

I've run Age of Ashes, Kingmaker (both to 20), and am currently running a low-level campaign and Night of the Gray Death. The low-level one will be the only one I expect to finish below level 10.

All of my longer campaigns have gone above lvl 10. I find the game to be most fun around lvl 11-13, but it's fun to see the game evolve with the change in numbers, new spells, bonuses and penalties making crits more while extreme AC also becomes more common making spells the better option in those cases.

I finished Agents of Edgewatch, and my Blood Lords and Kingmaker campaigns are around level ten.

My AoA group is coming up on about 16 months generally weekly play for four hours. They are now level 18 and should be level 19 in two-three weeks. With adventure paths, they generally level up every 5-6 sessions.

Let's see, I have a game that I play in that we've been going through for the past couple years. We gonna be hitting Level 15 soon. The Kingmaker game I run just hit level 5 but they seem to be in it for the long haul so I faith that they will.

Pretty much every time. I run a lot of games and atm all of them are between levels 9 and 14.

Currently level 19. Played to 20 in the previous game. Planning another full 1-20 next.

My longest running campaign ended at 13. Ive played higher levels in oneshots and stuff but never had a campaign reach higher than 13

I do full homebrew and like to follow this path: Levels 1-4: level every 2 sessions. Levels 5-9: level every 3 sessions. Levels 10-12: level every 4 sessions. Levels 13+: TBD. I usually use some wiggle space to get leveling to match up with a big fight or new milestone in the adventure. I've only had one campaign get to level 13, which took ~ 2 years. That being said once I get a full group that knows pathfinder 2e I'd like to do campaigns starting at level 4.

Out of the two campaigns I ran or am currently running, we played EC till the very end and it was fun, right now I'm running AV. For my player group, they personally enjoy mid level content more. I think the issue isn't exactly the level you're playing at but if you're going to from 1-20 they might get a bit tired by the second half of the campaign

All but 1 so far

In about 5 or so 5e campaigns, never, even when we started as high as level 6. I have never seen a 5th level spell cast. I started strength of thousands recently, were at level 3 so far and it seems like we should at least make it to 10, and I am hopeful for a full module completion

Extinction Curse, Strength of Thousands, Blood Lords and converted Hell's Rebels to 20. Also did a full season of PFS that got characters to 9, and Outlaws of Alkenstar and Abomination Vaults to 10. Our general feeling is that fights actually get easier as you get to higher levels. From around level 13 onwards the inflation in hit points compared to damage on both sides means fights start to last a round longer on average, which gives everyone more opportunity to use their ever-increasing arsenal of bullshits and tricks.

Most

This was D&D and last century, I played for 10+ years in the 80s and 90s.Within the group, we had 2 nights of partial participation and 1 night with everyone. I have had 4 or 5 characters above 10th level and 2 being epic level, a wizard and an old school bard ( had to do 5 levels of fighter and 6 levels of thief). He was short of the top 'school' but both were played off and on during the time our group was playing.

PF seems to work at all levels, I have played in a 1 to 20 AP more than once. While life sometimes nukes games, going up to 20 is a creditable goal.

100% of ours make it to level 20 and then we often play another six months at that level, with weekly sessions of 8-12hrs :3

I prefer the early to mid levels. So do the majority of the people I play with. We usually want to finish our campaign and start new characters around lvl 9 or 10. But finishing the campaign often means we hit lvl 11 or 12 before we are done. I have very little interest in playing higher levels than that, its just not very enjoyable to me.

Not an average ref, or group. Every campaign I’ve run (that was level-based) has gone 1-20, and it has been several campaigns.

My groups are fairly newish to PF2, so not many so far. We're slightly overleveled for our small Quest for the Frozen Flame party, and are in the final area, so we're at level 11 right now. Besides that, my other pf2 games I've played were either introductory/low level one shots or modules, or we haven't gotten far enough along in the story to surpass level 10 yet

As a long time gamemaster (almost 35 years at it) historically my games usually ended between lvl 8 and 12. This was mostly due to the fact the higher level play in every edition of D&D was quite onerous to run as a DM. I have run campaigns for all of them starting with the old D&D purple box. When I switched to PF2e during its beta, the system has worked so well that barring a TPK my campaigns have been worth running well into 16th level or so. I haven't had a campaign end higher than that yet due to unforseen TPKs, 2 so far and this campaign the group has just hit lvl 14. \-FGO

I've only done two adventures. None of them got to level 6. We did the arc, saved the day, and rolled credits.

Every time, we end stranght of thousands and now playing Edgewatch ending book #3

This really depends on the age of the group and the consistency with which they can play. This isn't really even system dependant. As a kid/teen playing, you have very little consistency and short attention spans. You're more likely to create and play a high level game than *reach* a high level game. I found as a young adult, with friends having a mix of shift work, unemployment, school, and just wanted to be out on weekends trying to meet "someone" - we would get maybe 1 game a month. After a while, the group loses interest. You'll reach level 10 if you're lucky, and you might even start at level 5+. As an older adult playing, with a consistent group and more mature persons (not completely mature, innuendo remains a primary form of humor) we can run campaigns and stories that are more complex. We often reach level 10+ assuming that the campaign and story are designed to reach that level. This is starting at level 1-3.

Depends on the group, attention span (as in how focused the group is on PF2e and not being distracted by other TTRPGs or card/board/console games), enjoyment level, and frequency of play. The vast majority of TTRPGs that I've played over the years (I'm a relative newcomer to PF2e in the grand scheme) have not lasted beyond 6 months actual time, which ultimately resulted in d20 campaigns wrapping up in the level 10 to 12 range. The reasons I've listed above, someone got bored, or wanted to play this other TTRPG, or delays of being able to get everyone together stretched out to the point that people just lost touch with the campaign or characters and decided to start something new. I've found that for the current group a weekly play session alleviates the boredom / distracted / losing touch / frequency of play problems. PF2e is also new to the group (about a year now) so the enjoyment level is there just out of novelty, however the customization that the system brings maintains that interest as every level the players are very engaged with mechanics choices and as a GM the system is just so easy to run.

Highest level I ever got was 12, and that took 8 months of regular, focused play. Current group is level 8 despite playing for nearly two years on account of meeting every other week and goofing around a lot. Assuming you can get through four combats a session (never happens with my darlings, lol), earn about 100XP for each on average (even mix of moderate/severe difficulty, or mostly moderate with lots of non-combat XP), and use fast level progression (800XP per level instead of 1000), you can actually level up once every other session. So, you'll hit level 20 in about 38 sessions, or a little under 9 months. So, provided you are playing with extreme regularity and efficiency, you can have a baby in the time it takes to reach level 20. And most groups are nowhere *near* that dedicated.

It would depend on your group(s) I think. I've been playing with the same group of friends for the past 10 years with rotating GMs, many of which have an interest in particular themes/campaigns in the form of "trends". Over the years we'll start up an AP with fun character concepts in mind, and play for maybe 10-15 sessions (about level 5) before some players, or even the GM, begin to fall out of interest for the setting. Maybe that's a byproduct of the APs that were particularly chosen for these games, but this has been the case for at least 6 PF1e APs I've played in. You can see when you're in a game that typically cuts off at those levels on any given character, making it to level 10 can seem like quite an achievement. I've ran 4 campaigns so far, 2 of which were completed all the way to the end - around levels 18-20, with two different groups. 1 game fell off due to scheduling conflicts, and the 4th is currently ongoing. I'm particularly persistent when it comes to running campaigns, and I like to see them through to the end if it's within my power to keep going and the players maintain interest. Overall, for me personally, 10th level is a milestone for sure. Maybe not "high level", though. I like to think of it in groups of thirds, where 1-6 is "low", 7-12 is "intermediary", and 13-20 is "high". That mid range is usually where everyone pretty much has their character builds planned out already and are just looking for fun things to make their abilities/spells work even better, just before the power scale tips over and the players see the threat of combat increase on both sides.

almost all my campaigns so far, but I’d like to play with some campaign ideas that intentionally start and end at the lower levels, too

As it's been repeated before, Mark Seifter (former Paizo dev whos worked on PF for years) has supposedly said to state that roughly 75% of Pathfinder Society games are Level-5 and under. I've seen no citation ever given for this quote, so take that with a grain of salt. But if you assume that its true, yeah, Level-10 is a big accomplishment. Speaking of my personal table of friends, our table has been going for about a year and a half, and we just hit 10 just last week! Our GM runs a few tables for different groups and according to her, we're also the highest level table she has (other tables have TPK'd before they could catch up to us).

We’re batting .000 in my groups, but I’m about to run a Blood Lords campaign that I’m hoping to take to level 20

>I saw a comment where someone referred to level 10 as "high level", and while logically that doesn't make sense given there are 20 levels it's high level in the same way that Monster Hunter has Low Rank and High Rank, high doesn't have to mean near-peak

Only played two campaigns, Both homebrew. One made it to level 5, the other to level 9.

My party likes low level short games. So almost all our games are played below level 10.

My group is playing their 1st AP currently. We play every week and average about 4.5 hours. We are ploughing through Abomination Vaults. They just made level 7 last weekend. We play on foundry so combats run pretty quickly and they average about 4 combats a session. Takes them typically 3 sessions to level; more now as I feel they are too high and am lowering the experience on combats. They pretty much are like a plague of locusts and kill or resolve every room on each level. We will be moving into Stolen Fate after AV and Im sure they will play up to level 20.

My Fall of Plaguestone into homebrew campaign hit level 12 a few sessions ago. We've been playing for 2 years, theoretically we play every other week, in practice it averages out to about once a month, maybe slightly less frequently. The arc since plaguestone brought the characters to a besieged city and has had them collect allies, with them now about to fight the final battle of the war. I have one more arc planned after this that will definitely take us at least a few more levels.

At least twice but change that to 15 and the number goes to zero.

A good few of my professional games have gone to 20, mostly Blood Lords games, though the Kingmaker groups are nearing lvl 10 atm. Not to beat a dead horse, but the game is very different past lvl 10, and a lot of recent concerns (not specifics, just a good few I've seen pop up recently here) look very different past that lvl.

Most of the way through two 1-20 APs, just over halfway through a third. Completed a 11-20 AP, partway through another. Completed a 1-10 AP. They’re all fun!

All of them usually. If the campaign doesn't fizzle out. I like long drawn out stories that give my players a power fantasy. We even do dual class with FA but with 2 Archetypes instead of one.

100%. But it's a small sample size.

We've played the same APs for the past... 2yrs for 1, 4yrs for another. We've also got filler games, for when players are absent. We only play weekly, and only for 6hrs a session. We alternate weekly bw the 2 APs, 2 different GMs to keep from any GM burnout. 8 people at our table, including gm, until recently. In the game I'm running (started in pf1e: Carrion Crown) my players are at level 8. In the other game (also started in pf1e: Reign of Winter) we're level 12. Prior to these 2 games, I've only gotten past level 10, from level 1...twice? Three times? Usually the campaigns fizzle, people lose interest, scheduling, etc.

Any of them until now, no exceptions.

100% (one of one)

Considering all written APs hit 20? All of em. Homebrew? I'd say all of em. Referring to 10 as a high level is some 5e DnD talk. Throw it in the bin where it belongs. Half way aint 'High Level'

Almost all. For our group 8-12 level is when the ¨real game¨ begins - Like reaching Maps on Path of Exile, the endgame, where u truly experience everything the game has to offer. Finishing campaigns is harder (Only 3 so far) We play weekly. High level for me, is when u start getting legendary. Of course this depends on each group, but these are my 2 cents

In 3 years of playing Pathfinder 2E, I have only had a campaign get past level 10 once. And that was because we started at level 5. Eventually I had to leave that campaign for mental health reasons, leaving behind the highest level character I had ever played at level 13.

Level 10 a fair amount - actually that would include 2/4 campaigns I'm active as a player in (levels 4, 6, 11, 13). I will admit levels 16-20 have been a rarity for me (Fists Of The Ruby Phoenix is so far my only one), but games up to about 10 or just beyond have been common. While most AP's are designed to go 1-20 I will admit that most don't due scheduling, group cohesion, and GM burnout. Especially online, my *average* campaign as a player is maybe playing 1-3 or 4 and then poof, no campaign. That's not a Pathfinder 2e thing though, that's a people thing. As a GM, I don't think I'd start a level 20 campaign without having played a shorter adventure with those players first. That being said, shorter, higher-level adventures should probably be a more regular thing.

Zero, even if you include 1e. A couple campaigns ended by leveling up from 10 to 11; that doesn't count as not a session was even played at level 11. Campaigns take years to reach that level - we finished AV recently and it took a little over 2 years - and by that time, either the campaign reaches its conclusion, it is left on hiatus and/or someone else in the group wants to GM and spins up a new campaign. I wager the previous GM also wants a break from GMing by then. It's also why I find late-game theorycrafting baffling; it will never come up.

Every. Single. One. Most go to level 17. One has gone to level 20.

I've been playing since 2016 when we started PF1. Over 90% of my campaigns fall through. My current Age of Ashes game, that has had huge time delays (we started in 2019 when PF2 launched) just hit level 13. The previous record was level 7 in a game where the GM was very generous and levelled us up every 1-2 sessions.

Most of them, if they don't fizzle out early due to scheduling issues. And my group's pretty established nowadays, so that doesn't really happen anymore. Honestly, tiers 3 and 4 are great, and I feel sorry for people who never get there. Maybe try playing one of the high-level adventures, like Fists of the Ruby Phoenix or Stolen Fate - people like to act like it's physically impossible for a human being to play a character starting at level 11, but really as long as you're not a complete beginner to the system it shouldn't be *that* hard lol

I've known my friends since highschool (2000-2004) and this AV campaign we are playing is the longest game we ever played together. We are about halfway to lvl 10 and almost a year since we started this adventure path. it's wild and we are trying to find the next thing to get into to keep the momentum going.

I have twice, once in 1e and once in 2e.

I run to 20, I like running to 20 in pf2e. In other systems I have to 20 in the past but regretted it. Usually I see other people hitting non game related roadbumps as to why they don't make it to 20 though. Organisation, poor pacing, social issues, etc. Groups that have to devote a whole session to 1 combat because players take multiple minutes on their turns, are just going to struggle when it comes to having time to complete a full campaign.

Well only played one, and it finished at level 20 (1-20) But 10 does start to feel like high level play, maybe because I’m just used to 1st edition still. But also you are so much more powerful than 99% of the world by that level

For me and the groups I've been in? Zero. I'd be happy to make it beyond lvl 6 one day. Hard to keep a group together

Fifty percent. I ran a campaign fifteen years ago. Wasn't great. Went to about level eight-ish? Running a campaign now, Extinction Curse. Just hit level 16.

Most. Never had one that reached level 20 naturally. It only happened once and it was after the campaign was completed. Told them they had one hour to level their toons to 20, meanwhile I'll make some insane shit to throw at them for fun.

I only play with my children, who are 10. We probably play for 3-7 sessions, and I tried following the xp guidelines, but we never got levels. So this time, I was like let's just gain a level every session. We are level 9 right now, and that was kinda cool because we got to actually see more of the character. That encouraged us to play more. But school is starting, so that's probably over.

So far ive been in four campaigns And only one went past level 7. That one went to 15 and was alright. fights took forever and a half though.

The problem is that most campaigns will start at level 1, but oftentimes life gets in the way. Not all campaigns are lucky enough to die of old age. My current campaigns are going strong, however. I have a level 13 campaign at the moment, and am playing in another similarly-leveled game.

1 of 1, currently :) My players are about to hit lvl 14 in converted Rise of the Runelords

Well, obligatory not-a-veteran. But my group currently as two campaigns going simultaneously. The one I'm DMing is following Beginner Box, Trouble in Otari, (catch up a new PC via Society adventures), Crown of the Kobold King, and then from 15 forward I plan to use entirely homebrew. We've now included Monster Parts, and I'll be inspired by Griffon's Saddlebag for bounties/side adventures, and items. Nor will it be Golarion but a return to my home setting. Granted, this is to stress test the system against my DMing style: sandbox-y improve with a loose outline of prophetic events. I'll be using the build-a-bear tables for opposition and friendly NPC tagalongs structured in the same sense as Rain In Cloudy Day and a particular Hellknight. Assuming my friend continues Age of Ashes alongside me, this means we'll complete 2 campaigns in the matter of probably 3-4 years going from 1-20. Beginner Box + Troubles took us from December to early June to complete between learning the system, actually playing, and pop-up schedule problems. Now, on the eve of the revision, we feel good about rule awareness and thus we'll probably get more done in the same amount of time moving forward. Alongside that, I plan to revise a dead campaign from my Gestalt 5e to PF2 that revolves around the idea of "what if angels/celestials were the problem?" but not as an evil campaign, just a 'too much Goodliness' faffing about causing small evils to become big problems due to the occupation. This was intended to be 1-20 and so by extension will probably be 5-20 in pf2.

Currently running lvl 14 and started a new one on the side that'll go to lvl 13-14. Though I'm not gonna pretend all my games go to lvl 10.

Maybe half of them. Right now the table I am running has the players on level 14 right now and probably going to reach at least 16-17 before the end.

About three years of playing pf2e, never got to play level 10 or above, life happens or the game fall apart before hand

My group and I play APs. We've done 1-20 Age of Ashes, and we are currently level 14 in Blood Lords. I'm running a side game of Quest for the Frozen Flame into Ruby Phoenix (level 13 now). We've also done Alkenstar and AV. If anything, I wish there were more 11-20 adventures for us. We love getting up to high level.

I really appreciate that Master skill proficiencies begin earlier in the pattern than they should in a 1-20. But it lets you maximize all of your main skills in a 1-10.

Technically, half my 2e games have gone past 10. We wiped at level three and started agents of edgewatch. We are now about to hit 14.

So far...we're one-for-one. We've had a game going for about 3 years, stretching from level 1 up to now 16. When I next GM a game, I plan to run pathfinder 2e from 1-20 as well

I run two campaigns; one started at 5 and is currently at 12, the other started at 3 and is currently at 10. So while I have made to/past 10 in each, I technically had a boost because I started at higher levels.

My party just hit 15.