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In Numenera, it mentions that difficulties are on a scale of 1 to 10. However, effects or abilities might modify this difficulty 1 or more steps in a direction.
For example: A dazed character attacking a level 10 foe would need to make a difficulty 11 task... or is it capped at 10? So if he applied 5 levels of effort to reduce the difficulty of the task, is the task now difficulty 5 or 6?
It would apply - think about it this way; a task is impossible to achieve whether it is difficulty 10 or 11 so the question is purely academic at that point. But if a character applies 5 levels of effort and is also dazed, the net modifeir to the difficulty is -5 + 1 = -4 i.e. difficulty 6.
According to the description here and elsewhere, the maximum difficulty level is 10. Which already means "Impossible - a task that normal humans couldn’t consider" so that's a clue. I have never seen a Numenera roll adjudicated at a higher difficulty level than 10. Even a 7 is getting toward the impossible.
"The upper levels of difficulty, 7, 8, 9, or 10, are all but impossible, since the target numbers would be 21 or higher."
Another clue is provided in the following paragraph (notice that upward mods are not described, only downward mods):
"It’s quite common for players to modify the difficulty of a task. Using training, assets, working together, or–perhaps most importantly–effort, difficulty levels can be moved down multiple steps to make them easier. In other words, rather than adding to the die roll, the number you need is reduced."
By this reading, your dazed character would be rolling against a difficulty level of 5.
