As a rule of thumb, a character who's good at something will roughly have a 50% chance of success on a level-appropriate check.
Expert isn't "hard". At least not for an experienced 10th level character. You can be Expert in a skill at level 2, giving you a proficiency bonus of +6. Add a +4 ability score bonus and you're at +10. So you have a 55% to succeed at a check for which you have the optimal stats.
Expert challenges aren't meant to be hard at level 10. They're meant to be hard at level 2.
At level 10 you COULD be master, so a difficult task would be around DC 30. With Master proficiency (+16) and a +5 ability score bonus, you'd be at 60% chacne of success.
You're also only looking at the simple DC table, which is really just a very quick reference to spontaneously determin a check's DC. There's also the DC by level table, giving you a much better impression what a level-appropriate DC would be at level 10: DC 27. So a character with master training, the optimal ability score bonus of +5 and maybe an item bonus of +1 for the task will succed 80% of the time.
Seems high, but by far not everyone will have the optimized numbers for every task. Someone who's untrained in the skill won't have a chance at success at all (barring a nat20) and someone who's trained but doesn't have the ability score or item bonus is only at 50% chance.
It's perfectly fine to have the specialist nearly auto-secceed at lower level tasks. A 10th level fighter also won't have trouble hitting a 1st level monste, after all.
My own view on Blave's statement, "As a rule of thumb, a character who's good at something will roughly have a 50% chance of success on a level-appropriate check," is to clarify that "level-appropriate" means that the task is a challenge for the characters. Routine tasks are easier.
Usually, when I care about the level of a task, I simply consult Table 10-5: DCs by Level in the Difficulty Classes section of the Game Mastering chapter of the PF2 Core Rulebook.
The harder decision is when a level is not available. Recently, I needed to have some enemies make an Acrobatics check for balancing to wade across a river (Fording a River. The PCs themselves had crossed that river in exploration mode without any dice rolls, so it could not be too difficult and the enemies would chose an easy spot to ford. Ordinarily, sometime inconsequential like that would be "Untrained" DC 10. However, the penalty for failing the Balance check was standing still for an action, and the penalty for critical failure is falling face down in the river and using the next action to stand. Thus, so long as a character does not mind getting soaked, "Trained" DC 15 was manageable, too. Thus, I chose DC 15. The encounter would be more fun with the enemy inconvenienced.
If a task is something that an ordinary villager would do, then "Untrained" DC 10 is reasonable. Is the party going to use the Subsist activity in a forest to hunt for dinner? DC 10. If a factor makes it more difficult, such as hunting in that forest in the winter or hunting near a village where the easy prey has been taken already, then "Trained" DC 15. Page 240 in the Skills chapter gives examples (both for hunting and gathering and for scrounging in trash heaps):
Sample Subsist Tasks
Untrained (DC 10) lush forest with calm weather or large city with plentiful resources
Trained (DC 15) typical hillside or village
Expert (DC 20) typical mountains or insular hamlet
Master (DC 30) typical desert or city under siege
Legendary (DC 40) barren wasteland or city of undead
I don't know why a typical hillside is less fertile than a forest, especially since it could be a forested hillside, but hunting on a mountainside is Expert because the difficulty of movement reduces the area covered and the rocky terrain supports less vegetation. In a village, edible garbage is often fed to pigs rather than hauled away as trash, and begging at a farm would result in being offered work for a meal, which is Earn Income rather than Subsist.
As for the issue of higher-level characters having little to worry on skill tests, that is expected of adventurers. Consider how they react to monsters. A 1st-level party crossing wolf-infested plains is going to keep alert, set up two-person watches during the night, and not go off alone when hunting. An 8th-level party in the same plains are not going to worry about ordinary wolves.
Likewise, the 8th-level party can easily find food in a lush forest, can wade across rivers without slipping, can cover their tracks as they scout enemy territory, etc. Those challenges have become routine, even though the DCs are unchanged.
A player roleplaying a character who has trouble climbing an apple tree is amusing at 1st level. At 8th level, a character who still cannot climb an apple tree is viewed as incompetent, "Hey, wizard, stop spending all your time in libraries and get some exercise outdoors!" "Fah, the outdoors has little to offer besides mud. I cast Spider Climb and show up that buffoonish fighter." We GMs give higher-level characters different challenges, such as climbing smooth castle walls.
Important note about Skills in PF2E - in general, only Critical Failures result in a character not being able to simply try again. This means that even for Trained characters, eventual success at tasks that are not time or situationally constrained is likely for tasks which are not "Hard" or "Very Hard".
This is reflected in the published APs that I have read and run.
I recommend relying heavily the DC by level chart, and being liberal about labeling checks "Very Easy" for items that are lower level than the party. By level 10 (example), you should not really rolling DC 10 checks unless they somehow enhance the story.
I can understand and agree with all of that. My issue is on higher levels (and just theoretically, as I have not played on those higher tiers) then I might not call for skill tests if they are not influenced by a third party; I can then assume that most characters are going to succeed on most skill tasks but the most absurd (as climb a plain wall), because as said, the difficulty of hard tasks are not going to get HARDER on it's own just because the character evolved, right?
My own PF2 campaign is at 5th level, so I lack experience with the higher levels, too.
My experience with running three PF1 adventure paths--Rise of the Runelords, Jade Regent, and Iron Gods--is that keeping the DCs of the same tasks fixed is easier on us GMs. We don't have to calculate the DC anew; instead, we remember it from similar stunts.
Yet even though the DC remains the same, the flavor of how the characters react to the DC changes. At low levels, a DC 20 check is a major challenge. At high levels, a DC 20 check becomes terrain. Tactical players can take advantage of terrain, so that DC is still significant to the story.
Imagine a 2nd-level party confronted by a 50-foot-deep gorge with a rushing stream at the bottom. All the remains of the bridge over the gorge is its bare beams. DC 20 to balance on a beam. The party ties a rope harness to the party rogue in case he falls, he carefully walks across the beams, and secures the rope on the other side to aid the other party members (now it's DC 15 to cross). Everyone is tense as each character crosses one by one, belayed by party members on each side rolling to aid.
Later at 10th level, the party is fighting swordsmen inside the castle of the evil duke.
ROGUE: I wish to escape this maddening crowd of unpleasant blades. Is there someplace I can climb or hide behind?
GM: You see a support beam running 10 feet up across this 20-foot-high room. One end can be reached by a Leap from the stairway, but you will have to balance, DC 20, at the end of the leap to avoid falling. And walking along the beam is also DC 20.
ROGUE: Great! I Stride up the stairway and leap to the beam. (Rolls) I guess I was distracted, only 22. For my third action, I balance and stride away from the stairway. (Rolls) 30--this beam is practically a sidewalk to me.
GM: One swordsman tries to follow. He goes up the stairway and leaps. (Rolls) He misses. (Rolls) He catches himself with a Grab Edge reaction. He stands up and ... (Rolls) Keeps his balance.
(One round later)
ROGUE: I draw my bow and start shooting at the swordsman on the beam. (Rolls) A hit. And he is flat-footed from balancing, so I get my 2d6 sneak attack damage (Rolls damage). The second shot (Rolls) misses.
GM: The swordsman advances toward you, sword in hand, and (Rolls) loses his balance. He falls to the floor for (Rolls damage) 4 falling damage. That knocks him out.
I find I use DC by level quite a bit, but not exclusively.
Simple DCs are for things that are objects, by and large... the above balance beam. DC by level is for when you need to come up with a DC quickly for something that a creature has set up as an obstacle - i.e. I place a barricade in a dungeon fully expecting the party to find another way around (silly GM!), but they want to go through. How tough is it to break down the barricade? Well... I probably have stats for the creatures that live in the dungeon and set the barricade up, and I probably DON'T have their Craft DC. But I do have their level... check DC by level chart... and in 2 seconds I have a DC for my players.
When using Simple DCs, you're really not trying to make it "level appropriate." You are trying to make it "reasonable according to what the thing is."
Another sample chart, core book 515 (or the GM screen that I'm looking at now):
Climb DCs for various surfaces:
Portcullis (basically a ladder): Untrained
Crumbling masonry or wooden slats: Trained
Masonry: Master
Hewn Stone: Expert
Iron: Legendary
So... If the party of level 1 heroes finds themselves trying to get into a castle, it's hewn stone walls all around. Sure they can try vs DC 30, but it's in no way level appropriate, and they have only a 1 in 20 chance of getting even 5 feet off the ground. They need to figure something else out, like throwing a grappling hook and hoping nobody hears, or picking a lock in a side door, or bluffing their way past the guards at the gate. Or leaving, killing 6 levels worth of monsters, and returning when the Wizard can cast Fly :P
That's exactly the point: when facing a "static DC", how do you determine the said DC?
What guides you when thinking: this is something a master could do, so DC 30 not 20 or 40?
Can anyone do it? Untrained.
Can a Hobbyist do it? Trained.
Does it really want a professional? Expert.
Does it take someone who is notable in the field - a person famous for whatever or competing at a high level? Master
Will anyone who does this become famous, or known for years or decades? Legendary
Castle Walls are probably outside the range of a hobbyist for climbing, and intended to be difficult enough to slow down someone who is pretty good at climbing. But they aren't going to stop a master thief. Therefore, Expert DC 20.
That said, I'd still use a level based DC instead in most cases to represent the added difficulty of climbing the wall while also accounting for "active" opposition such as patrols, guards, etc. - though id probably use the equivalent static DC situation as a minimum.
I'd only use a static DC if there are absolutely no forces acting against the players.
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That's exactly the point: when facing a "static DC", how do you determine the said DC?
What guides you when thinking: this is something a master could do, so DC 30 not 20 or 40?
A good way of thinking of it is that Expert tasks are the highest difficulty people in the real world could accomplish with any regularity. Real world Olympic athletes would mostly convert into Experts in the appropriate Skill (albeit with relevant Skill Feats), not any higher, as high level people in PF2 are just superhuman.
And Master is very much the point in skills when PCs actually transcend the bounds of real-world human capability in various ways. Most Master difficulty activities are just barely possible for a real person to do, but we're talking world record, once-in-a-lifetime kind of accomplishment, and not all of them are possible even then. It is the maximum level of capability that real people can achieve (Master level PCs can do it regularly...which makes them superhuman).
Legendary is generally strictly impossible by real world standards.
Now, in anything involving other people, those standards break down a little because they're operating in a world of other superhumans, so anything involving competition with other people or dealing with other people, the standards are just somewhat higher, and it's not a hard and fast rule, but let's examine a few things you can do with a Master level Athletics check:
-You can lift or break open a portcullis, or break metal bars with your hands.
-You can swim in a stormy sea and make real progress.
-You can long jump 30 feet (the world record is just over 29 feet), or high 8 feet on a crit success (this is likewise about the world record for the high jump).
So yeah, DC 30 is where you put the very absolute top end of normal human capability. Meanwhile, DC 40 is impossible by real world standards, while DC 20 is for difficult things you'd expect only a real expert would have a chance at but not things you'd find unbelievable for a true expert in the real world, and Trained is just stuff you'd expect to need a real professional for, but not necessarily one of the best in their field.