*Returns from a mountaintop holding the tablet of Numenera*

Their DC system is fascinating to me because, to me, it carves a nice balance between "Specialist can do this easier" and "Everyone can Try".

The way, well, Everything works in Numenera is that you assign the task a level. There's a chart giving descriptions about like, how easy a level 0 task is versus the hardest task, level 10, and every step in between. The DC for the check is Level x 3, and you roll a flat 1d20 to see if you succeed.

Why yes, this does mean that levels 7-10 are Impossible By Default.

Instead of adding to their roll, players modify the difficulty of the task in a few ways. First, your training. If you have an Inability at the task, it's Harder by a step. If you're Practiced (default), it's +/- 0. Trained makes it -1, and Expertise is -2. Take that Level 7 (DC 21) task you're an Expertise at, now it's Level 5 (15) for you. If you have an Asset on the task (Gear, ability or Assistance), you can lower it by an additional 2 stages: Level 3 (DC 9). If you just gotta be sure though, apply some Effort. Effort costs points out of the stat pool that's associated with the task, and you can apply up to a number of levels of Effort equal to your Effort stat. So if your character has Effort 2, you can apply 1 or 2 levels of effort. Let's say we feel comfortable with just 1, to save some points. That same task from before has now dropped to Difficulty 2 (DC 6).

Through a combination of preparation, training, and pushing yourself, that difficulty DC of 21 is now a DC of 6 for you. The person untrained in it may only be able to get it down to 9, but they might need both levels of Effort to get it there, thus spending more of their resource for powering abilities and their health (Your health total is a combination of your 3 stat pools). And since Effort can't exceed your Level + 1, nobody can just outwork every challenge through pushing themselves.

One shot of it I ran recently, the brawler was stuck in a room and needed to make an Intellect check. Was a Level 5 check, so he pushed himself twice, draining over half of his limited Intellect pool, and was able to use the NPC as an Asset. A DC 15 task became DC 6 and he hit an 11 on the die.

I think the Numbers in a lot of D20 games lead to a lot of issues for me, relating to DC. I feel the need to have to scale for difficulty, which I have to resist because otherwise it just makes no sense. With a system like this, I can just say "Is this something a normal person would struggle with? OK, difficulty 4" and then it's not guaranteed they can pass, unless they want to burn the resources to bring it to 0. It puts a choice in players hands and also makes helping each other way more useful.