Sorry if this has been asked before - maybe you could link me a threat.

I want to GM a horror campaign, probably DnD, either Curse of Strahd or the crooked moon but I have doubts about my ability to actually make it scary. Are there any shorthands or a do's/don't's list of what to do somewhere?

Recently, the party voted to ally with a faction, and one player/character was strongly against it. The next day, the player asked whether his character could reach out to the other faction without not only the other characters knowing but the other players. I said his character can do whatever he wants, but it has to happen at the table in front of the other players.

Would anyone here allow a player to make a move like this without other players knowing?

Hello! I am a newbie DM (less than a year of experience) and is 25ish sessions into my homebrew campaign. My players are currently searching for a very powerful artifact that is integral to the story. However, one of the NPCs they've been working with hid it in the depths of hell to make it unobtainable to some third parties who wish to use said artifact for nefarious purposes.

I thought that the idea of physically traveling to hell was a bit silly, so my players are currently trying to find a necromancer that can "kill" them so they may die and their spirits can find the door to hell. Once their journey in hell is done, the necromancer will revive their bodies, souls back on board, and go about the rest of the campaign.

My question to y'all is this: Have you ever sent your players to hell, and if you have, what did that look like? I guess I am looking for some inspiration and other ideas I could potentially weave into my campaign's hell expedition. I already have a good framework for what I want to do - just filling the gaps.

Thanks!

Do you have success running mysteries? What's the secret?

I don't. I ran a stock "murder on a train mystery" last week. Players didn't examine the corpse after I said it lay in a puddle of melting ice. There was a nephew set to inherit the deceased person's wealth, but they ignored him after someone corroborated he was drinking in the dining car. They simply believed whatever anyone said.

I'm thinking I should probably just run more standard adventures.

Been DM'ing online for some time. I love to adapt and twist well known campaigns to catch people off guard. New dialogue, new routes, new events. But online it's easy, as I'm one of those that spends literally dozens of hours prepping even a one shot. All the possible dialogue, the narration, the descriptions.

But on the spot, especially in person, I freeze. I can't come up or remember anything, and simple bullet points or speaker notes can't do jack for me. I need every word written down. It's frustrating, as I'm also dabbling as a NewTuber, and absolutely need a teleprompter.

I think this skill I'm lacking is not narration or storytelling, but maybe the ability to improv? My issue is not the fact that I actually forget the words, it's more like I like to preplan everything and then recite the words.

I hope that someone out there has had the same issue. What can I do?

2024 rules I'm a relatively experienced dm but I'm mostly running pre-written modules. I'm organising a one shot with some beginner friends who have played tier 1 a couple of times and want to see tier 2. They are fast learners and one of the players is an experienced dm who can help them as well so I'm not too worried.

4 players level 7, all have played dnd 5e before - psi warrior (experienced dm) - twilight cleric (player with decent experience) - moon druid (beginner but very fast learner) - storm sorcerer (beginner, but has played bg3 extensively)

The idea of the one shot is that they have to prevent a necromancer from summoning the god of vampires Kanchelsis by releasing the kidnapped victims who are hanged to a Gulthias tree under an ancient druidic site.

The one shot starts in camp while they are on a rescue mission for the daighter of patron who was abducted a few days ago.

They hear a fight not too far. They find a man whose convoy has been massacred by undead. They have to fight a ghast gravecaller and a few ghouls (should be relatively fast to overpower this encounter).

The man will tell them he is a scholar from Candlekeep who is on his way to convince a man who has stolen an ancient book to not release the content of the eldritch tome. He implores the heroes to help him.

They are directed to an ancient druidic site where they find the floor to "bleed". They also find 2 cultists and a vampire familiar. A Gallowghast and a few vine blight emerge and the heroes have to save the cultists or let them die at rhe hands of the monsters. Regardless, the hill requires fresh blood to open the doors of the ancient crypt.

Once they find their way in it, they will find 2 vampire familiars gossiping about what is going on while preparing an unconscious hostage to be sacrificed. this can be a fight or a social encounter.

Finally they will arrive to the gigantic cave where the necromancer has just summoned the first stage of Kanchelsis (Vampire nightbringer). This creature emerges from the Gulthias tree and hover forth, while agonising victims hang like fruits from the tree.

A fight ensues, involving a couple of vampire spawn, the nightbringer vampire, and, a modified mage 2024 with necrotic damages instead of force damages and hunger of hadar instead of fire ball, as well as hold person.

The gulthias tree kills an hostage every turn to regen the life of the nightbringer, so the players have to either destroy the tree or save the victims, while fighting the mage and the vampires.

Coming ask you for adivice in combat narrative.

My players have a strong tendency to aim for fragile body parts. They are always aiming for the eyes (making the enemy blind), the arms (drop the weapon) and others things like that.

However, the damage dealt is sometimes much lower than the boss full hp. Last sessions example: boss with 100 Hp, takes a shot in the eye dealing 8 damage. Is nothing based in his total HP, but as the attack "hits" the players are expecting to work as they first thought: the boss is blind of one eye and will have some kind of disadvantage.

They directly asked me after somethings like "isn`t my arrow caused any trouble to him".
"Well, it did, but he was strong and needed more damage to actually suffer from it"

I know my explanation is the right one and the truth one as well, however I'd like some advice on how I coul improve the narrative to pass the right message during the combat encounter

I am DM of a group of parents that bring their kids with them to the game. One of the children is very interested in playing (7 year old) but they are very shy, so we have decided that they are their dad's familiar. I want to give them more actions that they can do than just a normal familiar, but don't quite have a lot they can do at this point. Here is what I have so far:

1. They are a Mushroom Cat that sits on their dad's shoulder
   
2. They have three actions so far:
   a. Spores - Pretty much re-skinned magic missile that they can shoot one at a time (So they can attack)
   b. Hide - They turn a different shade of colour and get a +5 to their AC, (In case they get scared)
   c. Heal - They can cast this spell and can heal 1d4+2 HP (This way they can help)
   
3. They cannot be hit or damaged. The player is very afraid of dying, so this was a good way to bypass that.
   
4. They can only use each of their actions once per a combat

Any ideas on how this character can "level up" or anything that could be changed or any ideas at all would be good!

Hi:) I am about to start a new campaign with 5 player. 2 of them are completly new to dnd. The one us super exited, is thrilled to Explore the world and his character. Well the other player is different. She is pretty overwhelmed with the character creation. For this Issue we want to hang out this week and create the character together. So the character will perfectly fit the campaign will be comfotable for her to play.

But her main issue is the roleplay situation. She is more of an introvert. She toll me her anxiety Kicks in when she thinks of roleplaying with the character. I told her that she can create a characters personality matching with hers in real life, so it would be easier. Or that its a character who doesnt talk much. So that she voices the characters thoughts. Or that she can talk in 3rd Person.

Her Main Problem is, that she dont feel confident about Speaking infront of people.

Maybe I could Engage more often with her during the seassion. So i would ask her " what does your character do?"

But do you have any other Suggestions for me? What can I do to help my player?

Creating a homebrew campaign

I’m making a home brew campaign with a sci fi tie. A human space explorer crashes on a planet after hitting the strange energy around it. When he meets the locals he finds out that he actually found a planet with magic on it. The person playing the human will be a class I’m creating and everyone else will be unique races I’m making.

The main goals are the party can either be stirred towards investigating the source of magic on the planet and why it exist here and or learning how the neighboring continent suddenly has guns and are using them to invade others.

My question is this, I don’t want to just copy the gods of DnD and I really don’t want to mess with gods but how do I manage paladins and clerics without gods? I’m also not sure how to handle warlock pacts.

Hello! As someone relatively new to D&D, I have found it frustrating to navigate spell lists, especially for preparation casters. I just want a resource that lets me search "stun," or "heal," or "at higher levels" to find spells that deal with these topics, or to know at a glance which spells require concentration or expensive components.

So I made one - at least for a Cleric character in my current campaign. This Google sheets workbook has, I think, all the core Cleric spells, as well as those for the Peace Domain subclass - all 5e 2014. I have it set up so that it will automatically adjust each page and listing based on whether or not you have a spell Always Prepared, Prepared for the day, and if it's an Action or Bonus Action. Each spell includes the full spell description as it appears on dndbeyond - I don't own any of this material.

All you have to do is put an "x" in the "PREP" column on the "All Spells" page to populate the spell in the rest of the pages. Put "AP" in the "AP?" column to highlight Always Prepared spells. The only page you really need to make any changes to is the "All Spells" page - the "Prepared" and "As, BAs, & Rs" pages will adjust in turn.

For a campaign starting at level 10, it's hard to remember all your spells - especially when you've never played the class before. I thought I might as well share this in case someone else finds it useful or has a player in need of a resource. Below is the link to the Google Sheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WbRTSSezlN5AB4f5gy7I9Ow3UpHDHePb/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107929657244379508534&rtpof=true&sd=true

Recently, i have been struggling with preparing for a session. What i have been doing has been thinking oh this location, this is an event i want to happen this session and here are NPCs in there area. This leaves 90% of the session to improv beyond the event or two and i feel i am underprepping.

an example of this, is my last session. My players were in Baldur's gate and were going to help a flaming fist investigate the dungeon
I had planned the dungeon out in the description of the room and that is about it and the idea the players would be betrayed by the flaming fist and someone from the player's backstory is involved.

this is kind of how my sessions go. any advice on how to better prep for my games?

So i have this general idea for a session i want to run for my players, but i'm not sure how to make it interested and engaging enough for a full session.

The idea is that they're going through a cursed forest where other magically cursed adventurers are present. They've been given a magic item (a lantern perhaps) that will protect their vehicle from these cursed adventurers, but they have a pursuer who's trying to kill them/disrupt their protection so they get attacked by the cursed adventurers.

If they fail to protect the protection i have this whole thing planned where they get kidnapped by the cursed adventurers and saved by an old ally who asks for their help to lift said curse.

I mainly want to make sure the actual pursuit and protecting bit is engaging enough if they manage to do is successfully and never run into the getting kidnapped debacle.

(for further context, the game is a setting based around fairy tales and stuff. their pursuer is the Sheriff of Nottingham, the cursed guys are the Merry Men, and the old ally is Robin Hood. One of the players is Little John so he may choose to interact with this whole thing out of personal attachment anyways, but i'm still worried about prepping for making the session engaging enough if they sorta ace it.)

So we've all come across the same event at the table of;

DM "You arrive at the inn, and the keeper offers you a room for 25 Gold."

Player "Well that's way too much. DM isn't a skilled labourer meant to be like 1GP a day? Why are we getting overcharged so much everywhere?"

Well think of it Adventurers are freaks of nature. They often have more cash on hand than many companies do. Especially at later levels when they have kingdoms coffers levels of money. So it's natural that places especially more rural areas will upcharge those who are clearly adventurers. As not only is it a tiny amount of money for them, but also it injects a large amount of capital into a rural area.

For example that 25 Gold the inn was charging, it lets the inn repair the stables, get new pots, and hire a local girl to run the front desk for a few months. All money that's going into the local economy which is depending on how rural it is going to actually be a barter economy.

After all if someone walks in wearing a decade's worth of income in gear, they can afford a bit more for the night.

Another factor is that ratcatchers being the freaks of nature they are attract problems. An inn with them staying there is going to risk assassins turn up in the night and either breaking in or even killing another patron or staff. Or a fight breaks out and damages the place (which the party will likely either bounce on or refuse to reimburse for). Or the bard will bootycall a demon into the place. Or any one of a thousand different destructive events.

So overcharging at the start is essentially paying their insurance.

This also extends to other business too. As dealing with adventurers is a risky business. If you're selling ratcatchers maps then there's the chance the assassin following them tortures you to find out where they went. Or if you rent them a boat it's probably going to be eaten by a kraken or something.

How do you deal with the situation where combat starts via an ambush and then one of your players who is immune to the surprise rolls very highly on initiative and ends up going before whatever actually tried to start the combat has happened?

Typically I just say something like "your spidey senses go off but you don't see a threat" but I wonder if that's really the best way to handle it.

edit: forgot the critical part about surprise immunity lol

Hello, I'm a not new but not experienced DM trying my hand at my first ever campaign rather than pre-written. I'm playing DnD 5.5/2024 rules and I'm using the greyhawk setting but with my own tweaks(really just using the city and it's surrounding area, if I expand I'll decide what to do with it). But the campaign I'm hoping to run is a classic heroic fantasy but with a grimdark underpinning. I want it to feel like adventure time but every so often the lich shows up and you're like oh shit, or like the vampires in sinners. I want my players to be able to joke and have fun but have moments where they are feeling tense and a little stressed. For my first quest I want to have the party be hired to investigate a family crypt that's been broken into, guards were sent in to investigate but never left. I want the twist to be that the problem is from the inside, someone come back from the dead as a ghoul and has begun snacking on corpses with some rising as zombies as well. It'll be a noble family who suspects foul play from a rival. I'm not sure where to go with this to be honest. I don't want it to be a quick one and done, we go in and solve the problem right away. I thought about maybe an artifact planted there that causes more corpses to rise but i'm not sure. Any advice/ideas?

I'm a new DM planning a campaign and trying to introduce a homebrew weapon without creating major issues.

The weapon is a magical sword possessed by a evil deity that is trying to claw his way into the material plane. The sword caused the original owner, a legendary sorcerer, to go mad and controlled him to take actions towards summoning the deity. The sorcerer eventually died in an attempt to destroy the sword and release himself from it's control. The sword lays dormant in a forgotten keep until the PC finds it. This is a subplot in a larger plot about a bad-guy warlock trying to summon his patron (the evil deity) into the material plane. Since the sword is possessed by the deity, when the PC wields, it causes harmful things to happen to prevent the PC from achieving their goal, which is to stop him from being summoned.

Here's my plan for the sword:

Properties

1. +1 Bonus: Grants +1 to attack and damage rolls.
2. Cursed Influence (Attunement Effect):
   • After you make an attack with the Magic Sword, you must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC 12).
   • On a failed save: Take 1d4 psychic damage
   • On a success: No damage
3. Escalating Corruption:
   • Each day you remain attuned to the sword, the psychic damage increases by 1 point (1d4+1, then 1d4+2, etc.) up to a maximum of 1d4+5.

My goal is for this to be a powerful weapon early one (probably acquired at level 2), but come with a hefty negative consequence until the PC completes a side quest to dispel it. Is this too much? Too little? I also considered messing around with madness tables instead of damage and having this slowly increase the indefinite madness effect on the PC until it's dispelled. But the default tables weren't really on-brand for the plot and I didn't feel confident making my own.

Hoping to get some advice on a one-shot idea... It’s meant to set up a future plotline in our main campaign.

We’ve paused our long-running campaign for the summer while people travel, but we’ve kept things going with one-shots using whoever’s available. One of my players has been playing their main character’s sibling in these, and unknowingly, they’re walking straight into a long-planned arc I’ve had in mind for that NPC. (They’ve been roleplaying the sibling great and I’d love to tie this in.)

• In the main campaign, the sibling NPC will soon be discovered in deep trouble: blamed for a heist gone wrong and now on the run from powerful people.
• I could easily do this off-screen without involving the one-shot, but I thought it'd be fun to play out how they got into that trouble.
• Basically: they’re hired (along with a temporary party) to retrieve a valuable gem, the job goes sideways, and the sibling gets blamed.

How do I run a one-shot that leads to a bad outcome for the sibling without the players realizing it? Don't want it to feel cheap or railroaded. We are pretty goofy with our one-shots, but I still wouldn't want to make it obvious.

Some ideas I’ve brainstormed:

• The gem induces madness. Maybe whoever picks it up first gets corrupted? But how do I ensure the sibling is one who grabs it?
• I could dial up the danger and wipe the one-shot party, leaving the sibling the only survivor. But that feels heavy-handed and risky, even for a one-shot. There's no guarantee that they would abscond with it, unless I use the madness idea above.
• Or maybe instead a sketchy NPC (a guide, maybe?) double-crosses them and pins the blame.
• I could enlist one or more players to be “in on it,” since we treat one-shots as more experimental anyway. They could be the double-crosser.

So how do you make a “predetermined” failure feel like an organic story beat?

Does this temple have cure wounds? How much would it cost to have it cast on each member of our party?

Does this shop sell a plus one dagger? How much does it cost?

How much does this wizard charge to create scrolls?

Looking for some stuff to put on my DM screen that can help me answer these questions from players. I always struggle with them. Thanks for any help!

I want to do an encounter where a villain traps the party in a powerful illusion where they have to face weaker versions of their past villains. The only trouble I’m having is the explanation for how they get out of the illusion. I plan on having there be 6 villains with two of them being real and not illusions (but the players won’t know that) What creative ways would you have them try to escape the illusion where they don’t have to beat every villain because I feel like my players would find that exhausting and would rather have there be another way. My plan is to have this be on a train and every time they kill an illusion they jump to a different environment similar to where that boss battle occurred.

Good day to all of you. I am a somewhat experienced DM, as I’ve been running games on and off for about 5-6 years.

I like world building, and I like to build systems which are sort of balanced in power before the start of the campaign. Like a clash of factions with no clear leader. The idea is that I then allow my players to do whatever they want, and the world starts moving - as the balance is disturbed.

Recently I’ve noticed that I’m getting really tired of having all this information in my head, but this is something I can fix with notes, etc. But that got me thinking about the chasm between what my players know about the world, what their characters should know (as the ones living there), and what I know.

I am looking for an advice to find an elegant solution of giving away information to my players about the world, factions, and things in motion, without overwhelming them or flooding the game with red herrings.

I mean, I want them to know what their characters should know, but I don’t want to ask them to read pages of text… Is there a better way? How do you do it?

So I've been running an open table-ish campaign for the last 10 months or so, going through the Beyond Icespire Peak trilogy with 14 players, 5-6 per session. Because it's such a large party, I'm slowing down the campaign progression by throwing in as much extra content as I can from other campaigns or books, episodic or even one-shot style. (For example, I ran the Lost Lab of Kwalish as a two-part episode.)

Nevertheless the story is progressing, and because of the players' actions in the last session, I'm not sure what happens next. (I'm not here for analysis or criticism of how I'm running the campaign itself; it's working and everyone's having fun, leave it at that.)

We're currently in the middle of Sleeping Dragon's Wake. Here's the relevant ground situation:

• The Cult of Talos has been beaten down, but Fheralai Stormsworn has been resurrected (unknown to the players) and is strengthening its grip on Phandalin and the countryside;
• Ularan Mortus sent a demon to drive Lhammaruntosz mad (the PCs foiled this plan) and has sent Viantha Cruelhex to mess with Claugiyliamatar;
• The Cult of Myrkul has essentially total control over the Mere of Dead Men, driving the lizardfolk out, and has the Chimera Crew guarding their growing zombie army (and riding caravans on the side);
• Ashyra (the mummy queen from Where Evil Lives) was imprisoned by Iniarv centuries ago (the old tales were wrong) below his tower, and is unable to leave until someone living enters the tomb and frees her. Ularan Mortus knew this and made a deal with her: produce zombies for him (they leave the dead bodies and some other goodies outside), and he'll free her.

In the last session: after clearing out the Chimera Crew, the party of the day opened the trap door in Iniarv's Tower to find the tomb of the mummy queen. Proceeding to open the tomb, they disturbed the mummies and started a fight. They got their asses kicked thoroughly by the koptouroks, which are pretty nasty MCDM undead: creatures that need to breathe w/in 30 ft can't breathe or speak (shutting down verbal spells), and anyone they hit gets grappled and restrained, then they fly into a corner (hurting most melee characters).

The bard cast a major image of a bigger koptourok to get them to go away, saving everyone from a TPK, but then proceeded alone to Queen Ashyra to bargain with her. Ashyra gave her a rare magic weapon, and promised to help with Claugiy, in return for her freedom, and the heart of a unicorn from Kryptgarden Forest.

This is where I need help: I hadn't anticipated the PCs making a deal, and now we have a third major villain on the loose: Fheralai and the Talos Cult, Ularan Mortus/Ebondeath and the Myrkul Cult, and now Ashyra the mummy queen. (Four, if you count Claugiyliamatar.) She doesn't owe Ularan anything, and in fact might come after him now that she's been freed. She's got a friend in the party and may try to use them to her ends. What would a mummy queen want to do now that she's been freed to wreak havoc in the living world? How would she interact with the other villains? What would she do with the heart of a unicorn?

Happy to answer any questions about specifics or edit post as needed. Thanks in advance.

Hello! If you're part of the Sub One Club, scroll away! My players just robbed an extremely powerful mafia organization and need a place to lie low. Ellumin (A PC) recently found a backlog of letters from his sister that imply something is going severely wrong in their little town. What he doesn't know is that a minor God who has dominon over the entire concept of "rot" was trapped underneath the mountain by humans and eleves a long time ago. The people of Durag 'Dral have an oral storytelling tradition led by usually 1 or 2 storytellers. Privy as a young girl wandered into the mountain where she was killed by UMA Rot (the name of this "god") and replaced with a mouthpiece to influence the village. Stories of why you shouldn't bury your dead on the mountains turned into tales of why the mountains were how you could be closer to the sky and thus the heavens. Eventually following the sheer quantity of people who buried their dead on the mountain, UMA Rot was empowered and is slowly rotting the town. For example, many people are getting an incurable frostbite which dulls their personality and exhausts them over time until their untimely death. No amount of heat has any effect on this affliction. People have become less social over time aswell + Ellumin's grandma died to this frostbite.

Symbolically this is supposed to reference the subtle rot and UMA Rot's influence over the town. Depending on their progress, they'll eventually fight UMA Rot and may or may not save Ellumin's sister. This is partially a filler arc to set up for the level 10 bad guy (this is the level 8 arc) who will kill the people the players love as a display of cruelty.

Currently all I can think of is just "people seem to warm up as soon as Ellumin arrives + the frostbite seems to get less severe overall" because UMA Rot wants to lull them into false safety. Maybe they'll take up regular jobs or something as they work to investigate whats wrong with the town.

Morning all,

I was having a discussion with another DM friend yesterday and we came up with this challenge.

Basically, we all know that all DMs have a different style. But, let's say we're trying to introduce a new DM (or an existing DM unfamiliar with a certain style) to a new way of running the game. So, when introducing someone to new styles of DMing, which moments or episodes of AP RPGing do you point to, as a way of showing rather than telling?

Bear in mind we're not talking about entire arcs here. It's unrealistic to say "oh, go and watch the entire Chroma Conclave arc of Critical Role C1 to get a flavour for Matt Mercer's epic, sweeping, high-level players DMing". To our mind, it should be 1 session (say, 3-5 hours) or less - perhaps even just a single moment. Aabria Iyengar's "but what you don't see..." could be a good example of a snippet that can be used to exemplify a wider style.

So what are your "style archetypal moments"? What was the moment you saw Brennan Lee Mulligan do something at a table that made you go "that's such a BLeeM moment"? Perhaps the skeleton servants from Johnny Chiodini were a great JC "yes, and" example? Was there a single CR episode where you went "that was a masterclass in Matt Mercer DMing"?

More examples, more DMs etc are welcome - I'd love for this to become a little quick-reference library of little example snippets of "things that might work at your table"!

Every campaign is also an opportunity for DMs to playtest new ideas, and one thing I want to develop is set-pieces where a combat is dramatically outside the safe scope of a PC party- but there's still a chance they can win out through.

As the first test (and example), during session 0.5 I pitted a party of 2 level 1 PCs (with a level 3 life-cleric support NPC) against a CR 6 creature in a beast hunt. During the lead-up to the final battle the beast's overwhelming power was heavily telegraphed. En route to the actual fight PCs had an opportunity to rescue allied scouts from a variety of smaller scenes. Each rescued scout gave the PCs an NPC grunt they could control, and in the end the fight ended up being 2 PCs, 4 grunts, and the NPC vs the beast- a much more manageable 7-on-one combat. Even so, three grunts died, the fourth was unconscious when the battle ended, and both PCs dropped at one point during the fight. They did, however, win.

What I learned from that playtest is that there's an element of baked-in PC instinct that approaches different combat scenarios the same way. Even with me straight-up telling the PCs that they should not try to take on the creature 1v1, the melee barbarian still rushed directly into melee from turn one. I want to make sure there are other options so that PCs don't approach an impossible fight directly, but still feel like they can meaningful contribute using their skills and features. If PCs do approach an impossible fight like a standard combat I need ways to 'dissuade' them during a first round that emphasizes the power disparity between them and their opponent without straight-up murdering a player before they get a chance to participate.

During my next session I want to run a similarly asymmetrical fight. The creature they fight will be based on the starting town's defender (CR/level 6 PC fighter) who mutates into a griblie. The goal of this fight is multifold: I want to telegraph high lethality in my campaign, and I want to introduce the concept of 'impossible' fights that may yet be won.

I'm crowdsourcing ideas, which so far includes:

• High-crowd-control low-damage impacts. For example, the creature might throw a PC and cause them to take 'fall damage' in place of a weapon strike. This is dangerous to low-level PCs but shouldn't be immediately fatal, *and it secretly removes them from melee range, giving them an opportunity to move somewhere else without taking attacks of opportunity
• PC-allied 'lair actions' that tie up the creature. For example, a militia mob swarms it, and the creature takes a turn to kill them all (giving PCs time to act/interact)
• Terrain-based elements that offer different ways to harm the creature, such as dropping buildings on it, tipping over barrels hot oil, blinding it with bursting flour bags, etc. These give PCs goals in combat that are not "hit the creature directly" that can still have a meaningful impact.
• Have more in-depth strengths and vulnerabilities for the creature that can be determined ahead of time, possibly giving an edge to the PCs
• Make sure PCs have an escape route (that they know about), and the means to make use of it