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Homebrewed an adventure for my main group, in which they tracked down a Lindworm for treasure. (Or the "Rotrary treasure beast" as they called it). Figured i could share it's statblock. Feel free to give feedback, or use it yourself!

Lindworm.

HP: 45
ARMOR: 3
Movement: 10
Ferocity: 2 (Or equal to the party -1, to a minimum of 1, if you wish to make it a bigger threat.)

Among scholars, the Lindworm is a beast of mystery. On one hand, it shares many noteworthy traits with Dragons, both being great reptilian beasts who covet gold and treasure, which it hoard within its lair. But on the other hand, it lacks their wings and fiery breath, and instead employs deadly venom, and the ability to bite it's tail to roll at great speeds. They make their lairs underneath old, forgotten ruins, or digging out a den underneath ancient oak trees.

Wheel Roll: Outside of combat, the Lindworm can travel at great speeds by biting the tip of its tail and roll like a wheel, doubling the distance it can cover on land akin to players on horseback.

Weakness- Severed Tail: A character can attempt to sever the Lindworm's tail with a slashing weapon, making the roll with a bane. On a hit, the Lindworm takes damage as normal, but it's tail get's damaged. On another successful hit on it's tail, the tail is severed, and the Lindworm can no longer use attack 6. If the Lindworm is stunned, you make the roll without a bane and it is severed in one hit, and if you roll a dragon regardless of it's condition, the tail is severed immediately. After a shift, the tail starts to regrow, and can be cut again, following the same rules but without a bane. After another shift, the tail has fully regrown.

1: Body Slam!
The Lindworm lunges forward, bashing its target with its body. The Character takes 2d8 bludgeoning damage and is thrown 2d4m away from the Lindworm, landing prone.

2: Venemous Bite!
The Lindworm snaps after a Character with its jaws, dealing 2d8 piercing damage. The target must then roll a CON save against Lethal Poison with a potency of 12.

3: Tail Swipe!
The Lindworm swipes around it with its tail. The targeted player character takes 1d8 bludgeoning damage and is knocked prone.

4: Foul breath.
The Lindworm huffs and hisses, letting out a foul and caustic stench. Every Player Character within 6m must make a CON roll, and become Sickly on a failed roll.

5: Threatining display!
The Lindworm locks eyes with its target, rears up, hissing loudly, and reveals its fangs. The targeted Player Character must make a WILL check against a FEAR attack.

6: Crushing Wheel!
The Lindworm bites onto the tip of its tail before rolling forward like a wheel in a straight line, the distance equal to its maximum movement. This movement can not provoke Free Attacks, can move through blocking characters, nor does it use up the Lindworm's normal movement. Every adventurer caught in its path must succeed on an Evade roll (Action), or take 3d6 bludgeoning damage and be knocked prone. If the Lindworm hits a solid surface such as a rock wall, a large, sturdy tree or a cart, the Lindworm immediately stops its movement, and becomes stunned, losing it's next turn. To use this attack, the Lindworm must position itself so it can at least move over two player characters in a straight line.

! Not something i have tested, just a gut feeling !

Scaling ferocity and area of effect attacks does not match well. (likely also make round debuffs extremely strong)
A player can get hit multiple times between his own actions, and if you dont have heavy armor that is likely to kill you.

Say a rogue type of charterer were to fight this guy with his 4 friends (total size 5 = ferocity = 4)
That is 4 actions from the monster he has to not get hit/killed by AoE.

! Not something i have tested, just a gut feeling !

Scaling ferocity and area of effect attacks does not match well. (likely also make round debuffs extremely strong)
A player can get hit multiple times between his own actions, and if you dont have heavy armor that is likely to kill you.

Say a rogue type of charterer were to fight this guy with his 4 friends (total size 5 = ferocity = 4)
That is 4 actions from the monster he has to not get hit/killed by AoE.

So in my experience a monster getting mulitble actions equal to the party -1 works really well (it pops up a lot in the adventure), as it makes the monster a more serious threat (my group of five could steamroll a troll with 2 turns per round). But the important thing is to remember that A: monsters can only do one of each attacks per round, and B: the monster can spend turns to evade/parrry.
.
Players i have noticed is usually okay having the monster dodge attacks (it get's one less attack in exchange), and you don't have to use all those aoe attacks in the same round.

That said, i could tweek the tail swipe into a single target, but i also wanna clearify that it's standard ferocity is 2, the "equal to the party -1" is if you want it to be a greater threat.

So in my experience a monster getting mulitble actions equal to the party -1 works really well (it pops up a lot in the adventure), as it makes the monster a more serious threat (my group of five could steamroll a troll with 2 turns per round). But the important thing is to remember that A: monsters can only do one of each attacks per round, and B: the monster can spend turns to evade/parrry.
.
Players i have noticed is usually okay having the monster dodge attacks (it get's one less attack in exchange), and you don't have to use all those aoe attacks in the same round.

That said, i could tweek the tail swipe into a single target, but i also wanna clearify that it's standard ferocity is 2, the "equal to the party -1" is if you want it to be a greater threat.

isn't it just that monsters cant do the same twice in a row? page 83

But maybe i am somewhat biased to the old ways of just increasing health. In my opinion this ferocity approach, while the idea is good, just turns the actual narrative of combat into a anime fight, where your giant worn is all over the place in the 10 seconds round last if its fighting a large group.
Same with having it dodge. Its a giant worm? how does it dodge an arrow? and the amount of space it can travel in 10 seconds puts a horse to shame. If it wanted to flee they could hardly do anything to stop it.

That being sad, gameplay comes first of course. But a middle ground could also be interesting, say ferocity equal to half party size rounded down, and increase health by 5/10/15 for each party member. (This does add some extra unwanted book keeping).

So in my experience a monster getting mulitble actions equal to the party -1 works really well (it pops up a lot in the adventure), as it makes the monster a more serious threat (my group of five could steamroll a troll with 2 turns per round). But the important thing is to remember that A: monsters can only do one of each attacks per round, and B: the monster can spend turns to evade/parrry.
.
Players i have noticed is usually okay having the monster dodge attacks (it get's one less attack in exchange), and you don't have to use all those aoe attacks in the same round.

That said, i could tweek the tail swipe into a single target, but i also wanna clearify that it's standard ferocity is 2, the "equal to the party -1" is if you want it to be a greater threat.

isn't it just that monsters cant do the same twice in a row? page 83

But maybe i am somewhat biased to the old ways of just increasing health. In my opinion this ferocity approach, while the idea is good, just turns the actual narrative of combat into a anime fight, where your giant worn is all over the place in the 10 seconds round last if its fighting a large group.
Same with having it dodge. Its a giant worm? how does it dodge an arrow? and the amount of space it can travel in 10 seconds puts a horse to shame. If it wanted to flee they could hardly do anything to stop it.

That being sad, gameplay comes first of course. But a middle ground could also be interesting, say ferocity equal to half party size rounded down, and increase health by 5/10/15 for each party member. (This does add some extra unwanted book keeping).

I will say i'm biased in the other way round. Sure adding health can make the monster a threat sense it can take more hits, a general rule of thumb for most rpgs is that the side with more actions usually wins sense they can do more (under the caviat that this depends on the monster, character composition etc). The troll i mentioned against my 5 players was able to down a player, but that was because they rolled very high on their attack and because of a tactical error on the downed players part. The rest was practically untouched sense they could dodge it's two attacks and have 2 attacks to whail on it.
It is noteworthy this "issue" cropped up because of the size of the party. Even at 4 players they had a large advantage against the troll. Giving the troll more ferocity

And it just might be the people i play with, none in my group had any issue with the monster moving at the speed of anime, or that it could dodge. If anytging they had a lot of fun with it moving around.

But i will just point out it is in the rules that you can increase/decrease hp/ferocity on monsters, so either option is fine. And the monsters that do have the "equal to party -1" are generally one if a kind creatures, either an existing monster that has been enhanced in some way or from, or a uniqe monster for that adventure in particular, and they are specifically designed to be a greater threat.

Edit: also, Lindworms are a dragon like serpent that hoard treasure and do bite their tail to roll like a wheel, look them up they are quite cool.