Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
A useful thing to remember is that intelligent creatures don't want to die. And all combat has the risk of death.

So, then, understanding why both the enemies and PCs are willing to put their necks on the line in this particular place, rather than just walk away, is a great first step.

Usually the answer shouldn't be "I want to kill these people". 99% of the time. Sometimes it is (maybe the final boss battle), but even then there's usually something else (I want to stop the boss from enacting the Deadly Ritual of Death) that's really driving it.

Once you understand why each side is fighting, you can threaten that thing directly, and have consequences that aren't just "death". And if you can't come up with a reason, then maybe you shouldn't have a fight there.
Even not-that-intelligent creatures have self-preservation and purposes usually that may only include killing as part of obtaining them.

Ravenous wolves are attacking because they're hungry; they'll go for horses or supplies, or drag off a corpse, and try to get away from the remaining pointy-sword-swinging PCs. And the PCs need not consider the fight "won" or "lost" for it to have consequences if the wolves steal somebody's ration bag, or kill and drag off a horse, or even just kill a horse and fail to drag it off.