Why not keep the goals and the xp system? Maybe the goals would give a larger chunk of xp, or make the harder goals give some sort of perk to the character.
Like you talked about the overleveled ratkin, maybe if you had a goal to kill a strong ratkin, you would get some nice xp and a perk that would make you stronger when fighting then, or improving your capture chance.
And for the smaler goals, maybe just some xp (and mana if it's still around) are enough. You would get a way to level a character early on with easy goals and something to set your sights on late game to permanently enhance the character.
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I think this as well.
just connect the goals to a different mechanic. Like, if you kill a ratkin leader or a certain amount of them, you get the title „Ratkin slayer“ or something like that, which gives the character buffs/debuffs, if the enemy is a type of ratkin. Or it enables new attacks, new choices, new items and so on. There is quite a lot things you could do with that.
I was coming down here to suggest roughly the same thing. I do think that the xp system should probably be disconnected from the goals, because that is a frustration I have occasionally in ero dungeons that after a few hard fights I've not managed to actually gain any level progress, but the system itself could still be very useful for uncursing things, or gaining specific perks or abilities, or a variety of other things.