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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 9367362" data-attributes="member: 72555">Outside of magic and combat, in baseline 5e, level 20 PCs are pretty incompetent.  They are barely better than their level 1 brethren.Suppose you want these activities to actually matter.  Like, how about making a cool artifact sword?  Or researching a level 9 spell? Then almost certainly level 1 PCs are better off not adventuring, because why not perform epic tasks in downtime - alternatively, level 20 PCs will find these clock tasks pointless.  All because the gap between level 1 and level 20 PCs is tiny in your mechanics.You can "solve" this via fiat, but now your system isn't actually what you described: the actual system is you are eyeballing the PC and determining what they can do, then asking them to roll a bunch of dice to make it seem like the dice matter.  Now, this isn't a bad system - it is basically how almost all downtime in D&D works - but it isn't what you described.The low-tier PC should be able to do low-tier effects on the game world, and the high-tier PC should be able to do high-tier effects on the game world, and (in my opinion) this should be captured in the actual mechanics.5e flattens the resolution system ("bounded accuracy"), and in combat places most of the scaling in the magnitude portion (damage, HP, and size of the effect of a spell).  I personally would want my non-combat downtime mechanics to scale in a somewhat similar way (for the reasons expressed above) - so I'm suggesting adding scaling magnitude.Now, it doesn't have to match combat magnitude scaling.  But the system you had didn't just not match combat magnitude scaling, it was almost completely flat in magnitude scaling - so much so, that it might as well just be counting successes."Hitting back" is an attempt to express making the engagement with a task less of a "roll a 10 or higher 5 times on a d20, one roll per week".If the task "hits back" (like how a monster does), then progress has pressure.  The faster you progress, the fewer problems occur.  And overcoming these problems might not be possible, resulting in failure.Throw in magnitude scaling (higher level / more expert PCs earn more progress with a successful check) and ability to handle complications (and magnitude of complications), and we can have the same system cover "make a breastplate" all the way to "make a cloak of invisibility" (or "undermine the mayor" through to "orchestrate a merger of crowns") without nearly as much "you are level 1, you aren't allowed to try".Complications could literally be something akin to an random encounter table, with the requirement that the DM do some work on the fly.As a sketch...If we focus on tier-based, PC's progress is (tool die) + (stat) + (proficiency) in tier 1.  At tier 2 (L5+), you roll 2 tool dice, 3 at tier 3 (L11+), and 4 at tier 4 (L17+).Tools vary from 1d4 through to 1d12 in quality.  1d4 is a poor tool, 1d6 a professional quality tool, 1d8 a masterwork tool, 1d10 an enchanted tool and 1d12 a legendary tool.So a level 1 fighter smith (+3 str +2 prof) rolls 1d20+5 vs DC and generates 1d6+5 (8.5) progress.A level 20 rune knight (+7 str, +12 prof) with a hammer of the gods rolls 1d20+19 vs DC and generates 4d12+19 (45) progress.  Against DC 20, the first one generates 2.7 progress/roll.The last one generates 44.05 progress/roll.The base DC for "tier appropriate" task it 5 + 5 times Tier (10, 15, 20, 25 for T1 through T4, with 30 being for T5).The total progress required to complete (the "clock") might be 30 per tier.  (30 Tier 1, 60 Tier 2, 90 Tier 3, 120 Tier 4 and 150 Tier 5).That leaves Complications.  Suppose we express Complications in terms of CR as a first pass.  A difficult T1 complication might have a total CR of 5, a T2 a total CR of 15, a T3 a total CR of 50 a T4 a total CR of 150 and a T5 a total CR of 500.  (This is total CR; so a T1 complication might be the opposition of a CR 2 Knight and CR 1/2 warhorse and their 20 Guards).  This use of CR is not intended to imply the only way around the problem is combat; rather, just an attempt to very roughly scale the size of the problem.Maybe these complications end up having an "obvious" solution (be it combat, spending money, exploring something, or whatever) that scales with the tier of the task.Or maybe mad libs style:You need _____ which is ______ by _____, but ____.A: An inanimate object, Some information, Help from a person, Part or all a bodyB: Cherished, Hated, Guarded, Owned, HiddenC: Insert tier-appropriate monster / NPC tableD: So does someone else, Time is running out, Taking it risks a disaster, Sorry the princess is in another castle, Have you considered the upgrade option</blockquote>

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