What are some good ways to make characters notably stronger, without items?

I think it essentially boils down to 3 or 4 concepts

>An enhancement that is constant, doesn't require upkeep. Can maybe be denied. Superman
>An enhancement that is sustained & will wear off if not kept up by its source; training/pills
>An enhancement that is sustained by something negative; demons/parasites

First Category
>Being blessed by any sort of God; be it evil or good
>Being enhanced by any sort of Science, nano-machines, brain enhancers, space alien crystals
>Being enhanced by any sort of Magic, regeneration spells, mark of krumm, space alien crystals

Second Category
>Any Training; Ten times Earths Gravity, certain styles of body training 100 sit ups, push ups and running a day
>A sustained technique whose power is equal to your adherence of the practice; Hamon, believing in the heart of the cards
>Any form or power that requires someone else to believe in you, or shoot their gay alien laser together; Captain Planet, Master Sword in Wind Waker requiring prayers, your giant robot needing your girlfriends feelings to work at full capacity

Third Category
>Intense training where you rub salt into your wounds to overcome pain
>your edgy character reaches different demon forms depending on how many souls he's absorbed at the prom
>space alien crystal worms make you hate the color green but make you strong enough to punch through concrete
etc

Obviously you can embellish any justification with any explanation.
You can also have different levels of enhancement
You can mix & match a few

i.e. Cyborg Goku has a Green Lantern ring and can't reach Super Saiyan 2 without releasing his limiter or engaging his twin GN drives to square his base power

drugs

cocaine in particular

Man whoever thought of Snowflame must have been just as high as he was

It would be fitting.

Why are you even asking this question?
Basically any system has options for this built in.

I need it for my character background

I was thinking of being a cyborg whose cybernetic enhancements were made by a necromancer and require fresh souls to operate at full capacity but then I wasn't sure if there was a better idea

What system?

GURPS

Shouldn't you already have all your abilities layed out, then? Why do you need extra justification in what is already a pointbuy system?

Have you tried to stop playing DnD?

By devouring your fallen enemies and making their strength your own.

>DnD is the only game with stat increments every certain level
It wasn't DnD btw

It didn't work for Tank tops though

Sounds like your GM is doing it right.

And that you're kind of "that guy".

Yes it did, just not as well because he didn't do it every day, even when he really didn't want to.

He just did it every day, because he wanted to.

don't be that guy user, be this guy

Power of Will, faggots

adrenaline

3/5 of our party used to take drugs pretty regularly. 2 of us still do, to the point that we carry items specifically to counteract the negative impacts of our drug use.

Right, so here is the weird bit OP. Items are great. I love seeing a character patchworked together with the many different tools gained through adventures. Hell, you could even say that most RPG parties work on the same principle. Each character brings a skillset for the hero to freely make use of, without personally getting any stronger. Items are great, man. They can represent old struggles and be gained or lost capriciously.

I could get into how Beowolf's swords all failed him because they represented the weak people who awarded them to him, but that's a bit too Veeky Forums for me. Point is, items and temporary party members are great 'cause then can be lost without real consequence.

same

you should check out tower of druaga

>Items & Temporary party members are great

This.

Any source of power can be codified into something physical

i.e. Marks, symbols, runes and etc are just physical manifestations of the power they represent and can be stolen or erased or enhanced

Even your training can coalesce into some sort of retard crystal or something and be handed off.

Good, sounds like you're gonna need it, bitchboy.

>wanting character improvements through roleplaying and background and not for killing for xps
Holy shit, what a munchkin

You've obviously been training wrong. This is what you should have been doing the whole time.

Rule of Cool

The underdog with twig body that becomes stronk doesnt work on rpgs

Turns out automatic powerups appeal to chatroom freeformers and tumblr fanfiction "authors".

Whoever could have fucking predicted this shit?

This is why you stop doing Starting Strength after a few months

You used the air conditioner in the summer, didn't you?

Except it's shit.

I think they are looking from the story angle, like they have numbers already. Just to make a character?

Actually I think OP is trying to find a justification to leapfrog over his fellow players in powerlevel.
the issue here is that GURPS puts everyone on a strict points budget so barring a really generous GM OP's new toys are going to end up cosmetic.

Magical tattoos.

What does that even mean? Not even that guy, but summer is exactly the right time to use an air conditioner.

>That doesn't work, my char has been training for 4 years and his stats didn't change a bit

I don't care how autismal it is, this is the biggest thing I appreciate in Burning Wheel: concrete rules for being able to allocate downtime to training your skills.

>yfw you look forward to downtime and time skips because suddenly spending 5 years in the mountains training with a secretive swordmaster means a fuckton of skill improvement

Your memes are weak, boy.

Drink a shit ton of demon blood, set yourself on fire, try to expel the demon blood from your body using chi
Repeat process and increase the strength of the blood and fire after every attempt
Around the fifth time you do this assuming you survive you will become immortal

I like this one. What's the coolest magic tattoo fluff you've thought of?

This. They also make you cool!

Spiral power.

>Character is beaten to the edge of death
>They refuse to lose and get back up
>It's physically impossible for them to be standing
>They've used all their best tricks, equipment, and spells already
>Anyone else would be dead, but they're still standing
>Because they feel they have to win

...

The ink itself is enchanted, and the tattoos are magical circles. They're like a magic item injected under your skin.

Continuing because this was on the last page and I needed to bump it so I could articulate my idea.

The magical bit goes in first, to make the basis of the spell. It's put in as a magical diagram, and is done twice. Once with regular ink to mark it out and to test the symbol's compatibility with the wearer, and a second time with a magical reagent mixed up as a special ink to activate the spell and endow it on the wearer.
Then comes the optional third step, of adding a cosmetic tattoo over the top.
Tattoos can be added to and altered, but never removed. It can be deactivated with another kind of ink, but never removed.

Magical tattoos can only be applied by someone with the right knowledge and enough magic of their own to endow you with yours.
They also come hand in hand with magic items pierced into the skin for a set of effects that can be customised more easily and temporarily.
This may extend to further modifications, such as sub-dermal implants and scarification. The practitioners and artists involved are highly augmented themselves, with cosmetic modifications added so they're a walking demonstration of their specialisations within the art.

From whence did the first tattoo and tattooist come?
Way back in history, ancient texts marked on the skin of mummified slaves suggest that the industry bootstrapped itself from simple applications of magical runes pricked into flesh with bone needles, and ash rubbed into the wounds to fix the magic in place.