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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6697577" data-attributes="member: 6787650">I've had 5E encounters that lasted for hours. Not hours of continuous combat of course but there were two Enkidu allosaur cavalrymen which shadowed a necromancer PCs and his skeletons for several hours as he approached the city, which scared him off into the woods. Eventually he decided on a flank attack up the mountain to avoid them, but in any case he was at least notionally engaged with those cavalrymen for hours.IMO there's nothing more fun than occasionally using light screening forces to threaten the PCs' ability to operate freely. Two hobgoblins on horses may not be a existential threat to an 8th level paladin operating solo, but they can definitely threaten his mission. Even a "defeated" enemy can turn into this kind of threat--if players kill six out of a dozen goblins and the other six goblins scatter, and the players only manage to hunt down three of them, those other three goblins remain a force in being which they have to worry about running for reinforcements, or jumping the PCs while they're engaged with another enemy, or cutting PC throats in their sleep.</blockquote>