Fretux' Adaptive Mobs

Adaptive Mobs works through progression tiers from 0 to 5. Hostile mobs gain better stats as the tier rises, including larger health pools, stronger attacks, wider tracking ranges, more armor and a little extra speed. The tier moves forward with the number of world days that pass and with the hostile mobs players defeat, counted per mob type, so repeated farming also pushes the difficulty up. Eligible mobs receive upgraded vanilla gear, and spawn pressure grows within a capped limit, adding extra vanilla mobs without introducing new models, items or dimensions.

Behavior changes come from a lightweight tactical AI meant to stay cheap with many hostile mobs. Zombies press against pillars and simple walls, skeletons and pillagers reposition instead of standing in place when shots are blocked, and creepers flank rather than walking straight across open ground. Spiders lunge and retreat, witches keep their distance from allies, and airborne mobs such as ghasts, blazes, phantoms and vexes move around their targets and anticipate movement. The highest tier is intended to feel harsh, and the config values can be adjusted to balance it against gear and enchantment mods.

Installation requires Forge for Minecraft 1.20.1, and the environment is server-side only, so players join without installing the mod. The code is open source under the MIT License. The current build is 1.0.0 for 1.20.1, released on 2026-07-21.