Wyvern
Explorer
If your point is, a higher levels heroes stop worrying about DC 10 checks, I heartily agree.
In fact, that's my whole point.
Only the memo didn't reach the official hardback adventure writers, who insist in adding in such checks even at material aimed at tier II and even tier III parties!
If you describe a door as "secret", yet gives it a DC of 10, then, well... I really shouldn't have to explain how absurd that is.
Or rather, it's mind-blowingly horrendously absurd that's what! (What I hope I don't have to do is explain why)
I haven't read the official hardback adventures myself, so I can't tell you whether I think the DCs assigned by the writers of those adventures are reasonable or not. However, I *can* offer a couple of thoughts on why DC 10 checks in a high-level adventure might not be entirely inappropriate.
First of, all I dislike games that ramp up the DCs of every task just to keep pace with the PC' level. Listening at a door shouldn't become more difficult just because they're in a deeper level of the dungeon. All that does is break verisimilitude and make leveling up feel pointless.
Secondly, referring back to your previous post -- DC 10 isn't for the Really Important checks, it's for the minor obstacles that the players have to overcome in order to get to the Really Important checks. It's not necessarily a bad thing if those checks become trivially easy as the players gain levels; it can give them a sense of accomplishment.
Thirdly, as a corollary to the second point: some checks are *supposed* to be trivially easy because the players have to pass them to in order to proceed. To use your example, if the players *have* to find the secret door in order to access some vital part of the dungeon, it's not good design to give it too high a DC.
You might ask what the point is of asking for a check at all in those situations, and that's a fair question. Some games, like the Gumshoe system, actually bypass the dice-rolling for certain tasks and just let the PCs automatically succeed. That's a valid design choice. But I think some players *like* rolling the dice, even if the outcome is a foregone conclusion, because it makes them feel like they (and their PCs) are active participants in their success instead of simply having the plot handed to them by the GM.
Wyvern