Jumps in Power Level

>>52996962
Its called "git guud" philosophy.
You either git guud, or git dead

>>52996962
Montage.

He's thrust into do or die situations, since he survived and gained experience points required to level up, he clearly didn't die, meaning he did do.

>>52996962
Everything in D&D is abstracted, so the HP and bonus to skill checks due to level can be considered arbitrary as well.

>>52996976
>>52996994
Does it makes sense, or is it internally consistent, for a person to survive a dangerous situation and become that empowered by it?
If it were to happen in another form of narrative, would it be plausible?

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>>52996982
>Montage.
This actually fits in 4th wall sort of way.
A montage is kind of like a 4th wall version of the time compression training from DBZ.

Of course, the whole idea of a montage is that it denotes the passage of time.

>>52997003
This is entirely true.
And yet it does absolutely nothing to explain how a character can be exceptionally more capable than they were just a short time ago.

>>52996962

Steroids and other sundry drug/magic abuse. Sure, it'll cut their lifespan in two, but that's outside of the scope of the campaign so who cres.

>>52997160
There doesn't need to be any explanation.

>>52997069
Yes, as you encounter dangerous situations, your body is forced to adapt to survive various external stimuli, take for example diseases. As your body encounters certain diseases it develops immunites to those diseases so long as it is able to survive and defeat those diseases. If your required to move 50 pounds of rocks to survive, your body gets better at moving 50 lbs of rocks.
If you survive being attacked by a man with a knife, you get better at defending yourself from knife attacks(only marginally though)
The exception is when you suffer massive damage from say, polio, or amputation. Those be negative levels son.

>>52996962
>>52997069
>>52997160

Assume they were always high leveled and surviving the encounters merely proved it all along? The skills were technically "always" there, its just that it takes a traumatic event like encounters in order to bring those skills out. The power that's inside or something.

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>>52997193
Technically true.

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>>52997200
I suppose there are examples in fiction of characters growing in bravery, confidence,
and strength over a very short amount of time.
I can't think of any where the change of capability was as significant as it can be in many rpgs, but that might be splitting hairs unless someone can think of other some examples.

>>52997286
I think I see your issue, you might be assuming that PC class levels are an in-universe concept that the character is aware of. Actually they are a gameplay convention, they are not tied with the events of the story.The bonuses on your character sheet really just tell you that you will tend to succeed on whatever skill checks more often or you can take more damage or whatnot. But in the narrative those things aren't discreetly incremented, they are abstracted into whatever events of the story.

Its more helpful not to think of the Ability Scores as intrinstic to your PC's hypothetical capabilities, but more of some overarching "succeed more often on X checks for whatever reason". So if you level up and bump up your Strength score, it might not be that your character literally becomes more muscular, but that for the sake of gameplay he gains a +5% chance to succeed on STR checks and hit with melee attacks and becomes qualified for wearing certain categories of armor and so forth.

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>>52997204
>The power was inside you all along.
There is this.
Sometimes the difference can be a bit dramatic for that to be plausible though.

>>52997447
>I think I see your issue
Well, my issue is really just trying to rationalize a game where, at the beginning, your character is little more than a peasant with a little skill with a sword, and at the end being an individual capable of defeating the Evil Threat endangering the entire kingdom.
Or any number of similar scenarios.
Over the passage of enough in-world time, the narrative makes sense, but sometimes the threat is imminent and the story arc takes days.

>>52997510
Even at"Fighter level 20" game wise with +13 to hit or whatever, narrative wise he's still just a kid but when he swings his sword the power of his memories of his uncles word's and the magic destiny quest causes him to smite the evil once and for all. Basically you never need to tie any numbers on the character sheet to the storyline.

>our character is little more than a peasant with a little skill with a sword
If a PC is lvl 1 with a +3 to hit in melee, in the story they could still be a well trained master swordsman who for some reason misses a lot.
If a PC is lvl 20, in the story they could still be some scrawny peasant kid who for some reason hits heavily armored enemies frequently and causes lots of HP damage points per attack action.
The weird thing about D&D is that you roll to succeed and if you roll high enough, you can then "justify" that success in however way you please.

So for your own game, don't worry at all about linking the PC stats with the story. If the kid goes from level 1 to level 10 in a week just say he's really determined to defeat the evil villain and his yearning causes him to dig deep and come out on top despite his youth and inexperience.