Tribulation transforms Minecraft's flat difficulty curve into an escalating gauntlet. The longer you play, the further you explore, and the deeper you dig — the harder the world fights back. Every system is formula-driven, fully configurable, and persists across server restarts.

Zero external dependencies. Just drop it in.

Three-Axis Mob Scaling

Mob stats aren't random — they're computed from three independent factors the moment a mob spawns:

Axis	How It Works	Cap
Time	Your cumulative playtime advances a per-player difficulty level (0–250). Higher level = stronger mobs near you. ~1 level per hour of play.	Level 250
Distance	Beyond 1,000 blocks from world spawn, mobs gain bonus health, damage, armor, and toughness. The frontier is dangerous.	+150%
Height	Deviation from sea level (Y=62) in either direction adds threat. Deep caves and tall mountains are deadlier.	+50%

All three axes stack. A high-level player fighting a mob 3,000 blocks from spawn at Y=12 faces the full weight of the system.

21 vanilla mob types have individually tuned scaling rates and caps — zombies don't scale the same as skeletons or creepers. Modded hostile mobs are automatically supported with conservative fallback scaling (configurable per-namespace or per-entity).

Tier-Gated Mob Abilities

Raw stats are only half the story. At 5 level thresholds, mobs unlock new behaviors that change how you fight them:

Tier 1 — Level 50

Zombies call reinforcements when hit
Creepers have a shorter fuse (15 ticks)

Tier 2 — Level 100

Skeletons switch to swords in melee range
Spiders place webs to slow you down

Tier 3 — Level 150

Zombies break down doors
Spiders trample crops
Wither Skeletons sprint

Tier 4 — Level 200

Skeletons fire flame arrows
Vindicators gain damage resistance
Hoglins and Zoglins get knockback bonuses
Zombified Piglins aggro from further away

Tier 5 — Level 250

Zombies sprint
Creepers have a 25% chance to spawn charged
Spiders gain a leap attack

Every individual ability can be toggled on or off in the config.

Special Zombie Variants

Two mutually exclusive zombie variants add unpredictability to encounters:

Big Zombie — Larger, tankier (+10 HP, +0.25 damage), slightly slower. Visually 1.5x scale.
Speed Zombie — Trades health for raw speed (+0.4 movement speed). Closes gaps fast.

Variants apply across the entire zombie family: Zombie, Husk, Drowned, and Zombified Piglin. Their bonuses stack on top of normal scaling.

Boss Scaling

The Ender Dragon and Wither scale with a separate, gentler formula using only the time and distance axes. No sudden one-shots — just a steady ramp that keeps endgame bosses relevant at higher levels.

Custom bosses can be tagged for the same treatment.

Death Penalty Systems

All penalties are opt-in and independently toggleable. Mix and match to set the stakes you want.

Death Relief

A rubber-band mechanic: lose 2 levels on death (configurable). Prevents infinite difficulty spirals for struggling players. Cooldown-gated to prevent abuse.

Shatter Shards

Rare drops (0.5% chance) from scaled mobs. Using one reduces your level by 5 — but inflicts Slowness, Mining Fatigue, and Weakness for 10 seconds. A deliberate trade-off, not a free reset.

Hardcore Hearts

Each death permanently reduces your max health by 1 heart. Minimum floor of 1 heart. Restoration is possible through Heart Fragments, a craftable recovery item. This system is completely disabled by default.

Soul Inventory

All items are destroyed on death unless enchanted with Soulbound. Experience can be separately configured to survive or perish. Disabled by default — enable it when you want real consequences.

Rewards Scale Too

Harder mobs aren't just punishment. They pay out:

Bonus XP — Scaled mobs drop up to 2x base XP, proportional to their health scaling factor
Extra Loot — A chance to duplicate a random drop, scaling with mob difficulty (up to 15% base chance)

HUD Overlay

A minimal shield icon and level number in the corner of your screen. Color-coded by tier:

White (0) > Yellow (1) > Orange (2) > Light Red (3) > Red (4) > Dark Red (5)

Flashes gold on level-up. Anchor position and visibility are configurable.

Commands

Command	Permission	What It Does
`/tribulation info`	Anyone	View your level, tier, and progress to next tier
`/tribulation hearts`	Anyone	Check your heart penalty status
`/tribulation set <player> <level>`	Op	Set a player's difficulty level
`/tribulation reset <player>`	Op	Reset a player to level 0
`/tribulation reload`	Op	Hot-reload config without restart
`/tribulation debug <player>`	Op	Full scaling breakdown for a player
`/tribulation inspect`	Op	Inspect the mob you're looking at

Configuration

Everything is tunable in config/tribulation.json. Key sections:

Per-mob scaling rates — Individually tune all 21 vanilla mob types
Stat caps — Global limits on health, damage, armor, speed, knockback resistance, and toughness
Tier thresholds — Move the goalposts (default: 50/100/150/200/250)
Ability toggles — Enable or disable every mob ability individually
Death penalties — Each system has its own enable flag, amounts, cooldowns, and floors
Distance/height scaling — Adjust starting distances, rates, and caps
Boss scaling — Separate factors and caps for boss entities
Modded mob support — Namespace exclusions, per-entity overrides, fallback scaling toggle
HUD — Position, offset, and visibility

Changes apply immediately with /tribulation reload. No restart required.

Full config reference: tribulation.rfizzle.com/config.html

Compatibility

Minecraft 1.21.1 (Fabric)
Fabric Loader 0.16.10+
Fabric API required
Java 21+
Works on dedicated servers and singleplayer
Modded mobs automatically scaled with fallback formula (excludable by namespace)
Optional integrations: Jade/WTHIT (mob scaling tooltips), EMI/REI/JEI (item recipes), ModMenu (config screen)

Installation

Drop the jar into your mods/ folder. Config generates automatically on first launch. That's it.

Tribulation - Difficulty Overhaul