This mod originally started as a small personal script designed to scale up map monsters to balance out the crazy powerups that GunBonsai gives you. From there, it just kept growing into its own thing. I wanted an RPG progression system that felt lightweight and seamless. I love Doom RPG mods, but sometimes you just don't want heavy inventory management, complex item menus, or constant pausing. My goal was to create something with the immediate flow of GunBonsai, but applied directly to the character's core stats rather than the weapons.
Concept and Progression
The thematic idea behind the mod is that you aren't playing as the fully equipped, unstoppable classic Doomguy right from the start. Instead, you can think of your character as an underdog—like a fragile UAC scientist caught in a temporal rift. By default, you start significantly underpowered, with slower movement, slower weapon cycles, higher damage intake, and a small health pool of around 66 Max HP. As you kill monsters, you harvest their essence, level up, and spend points directly into six core attributes: Attack, Defense, Max Health, Movement Speed, and Attack Speed.
The core feature is the persistent progression mode. If you die and the map resets, your level and statistics are frozen in static RAM session memory. You keep all your hard-earned power, making you permanently stronger for the next attempt. If you prefer a classic experience, you can disable these maluses and the persistent loop entirely via the options menu to start as a standard marine with permadeath rules.
Monster Scaling and Customization
To keep up with your growth, monsters scale dynamically based on your map progress. There is also a random chance for elite Alpha Bosses to spawn, rolling through five different power Tiers with massive health boosts and aggressive speed multipliers. You can fully customize this entire gameplay loop using the options menu. Every single stat curve, monster growth rate, and malus can be tweaked. It also includes an override for the map number variable, which is great if you want to play a massive 100-map mega-campaign across multiple WADs and keep the enemy scaling continuous, or go negative to reset the challenge.
The mod features a custom HUD with a fully adjustable XP bar that supports optional outlines, custom segment lines, and dual-color transitions based on your current progress. Under the hood, I also implemented decimal damage tracking. Monsters remember fractions of damage, meaning that a +1% ATK upgrade always matters because the hidden decimal numbers accumulate across multiple shots. There is also a built-in preset system allowing you to export or import your entire balance configuration using a compressed text string in your uzdoom.ini or *zdoom.ini file .
A Quick Disclaimer
I want to apologize in advance because the code under the hood is definitely not professional and might look wonky or unoptimized to veterans. I am still figuring out the quirky ways ZDoom-based engines handle everything, HUD scaling, drawing, etc. Right now, positioning elements relies entirely on menu sliders, which can be a bit tedious to tweak. I'm learning as I go and I'm very open to advice on how to improve the scripts.
Recommendations and Download
I highly recommend pairing this mod with TargetSpy to see enemy HP bars and DamNums.
I suggest playing the maps from the start when you die, either loading the autosave or with a fresh pistol start, in that case you'll reroll the Alpha (boss) monsters in the map.
You can import and export the configuration on the mod in a string in your .ini save, so you can share it here or with others if you'd like, and also easily import settings, I've included three deafult presets and I'd like suggestions on those and what other settings to add.
https://www.mediafire.com/file/zeeawzkh ... b.zip/file
I would absolutely love to hear your feedback on the progression loop, the math behind the scaling, and the overall feel of the gameplay. Please let me know if you run into any bugs or mod conflicts so I can work on fixing them. Happy hunting!
edit: 1.06b
DeathLoop RPG Mod - Changelog v1.06b
Hey guys, here is a small update with some significant changes:
New default setting:
Many reported that default setting made you OP too fast, especially on longer campaings or slaugher maps. The new Default setting uses the level progression, so bonuses are very tiny on low levels and grow bigger as you level, the old Default setting is still included under "old default" If you liked it (btw, share your configs, just go into your uzdoom.ini save and search for "import_buffer"! I will add them to the mod
)Better weapon support:
People reported that the No-RNG custom weapons broke Gearbox and sometimes they were unselectable, they should work better now, the custom weapons are still intended as replacement for vanilla weapons, it's better not to use with weapon packs to not have bugs
Heretic support:
Literally no one asked for this but this is progressing because I grew with Heretic as well as doom, but slowly, right now No-RNG Wand, Crossbow, Staff and Blaster are supported
and other bug fixes! I hope you are enjoying the mod!
1.06
I uploaded the lastest version, here's what's new:
Heretic support:
I started working on Heretic support, right now it's not finished but the monsters drop are the correct ones for Heretic if you're playing DeathLoop with Heretic
Attack Speed Bug Fixed:
I'm working on GunBonsai support and I noticed the Attack Speed was probably all wrong between 100% and 200%, It should be fixed now
1.05d:
Multiple Criticals:
If your crit stat is high enough you can do double, triple or even quadruple critical strike! the chances for double are roughly 1/4 of normal critical, 1/8 for triple and 1/16 for quadruple. See those lucky strikes melt bosses with a x16 damage! This also applies to drop chance, you can do double drops etc.
Changed XP Curve system:
I fixed a bug in the XP curve system, before it wasn't working as intended since it couldn't go lower than 1.10. I changed how this works, now it's based on %, so you can modulate your xp curve with even more detail. If you had configuration strings of previous versions (you can find them under "import_buffer" in your *.ini save file after using the exporter in the menu), just change the 4th value from 1.20 to 20, 1.30 to 30 and so on.
New presets: I added two new presets:
Constant Growth: Every stats gives a little bonus but grows with your level
DnD: 1 very strong stat per level and growing beyond level 20 is hard. I used the new % XP curve system to make the ratio between level 1 and level 20 similar to dnd 5e.
As always every feedback on presets and configs is welcomed! Share your own config strings if you'd like!
Also here what was added previously in 1.05:
Stat System Rework: Constitution and Luck
The stat system has been heavily reworked to give your attributes more utility. Constitution has officially replaced HP, meaning it now handles both your maximum health points and your total ammo capacity limits. At the same time, Critical Strike has been transformed into Luck. Luck is now a much more versatile stat because it still determines your critical hits, but it also directly scales the ammo drop rates from slain enemies and dynamically reduces weapon spread, improving accuracy for the custom Pistol and Chaingun included in the mod.
New Gameplay Modifiers: Ammo Malus
To go along with these changes, I have introduced an Ammo Capacity Malus modifier. This allows you to restrict how many rounds you can carry, giving you the option to completely change the pacing of the mod and turn Doom into a tense survival horror experience if you want to
Character Progression: The New RPG Grow System
There is also a brand new progression option as an alternative the standard system. When activated, your stats will scale naturally as you level up depending on your current build path. This means even your lower-tier stats will still receive minor passive boosts over time. Mathematically, your stats at level 20 will perfectly match the baseline values of the previous system, while at level 40 those values will double, scaling continuously as you progress.
