How many Deadly Encounters maximum without long rests, in your experience?

[Unoriginal]

I'm writing a short scenario, and I was wondering:

In your experience, how many Deadly Encounter can a group handle, without long rest?

[Spiritchaser]

Deadly is a guideline... if the party is well suited to the threats, and is in the position to choose the conditions of the fight (terrain, surprise, whatever best uses their powers), several, even at 5th level.

The group I'm DMing now loves to slink around, pick their moment, then unleash hell on a surprise round that they are all capable of exploiting well. Done right it's allowed them to gank lots of scary things, otherwise impossible fights they chose, since they controlled the tempo of the day.

If the foe gets the drop on the party, or the party has never encountered that type of new foe before and are unfamiliar with it, or things just don't line up with what the players are good at... then even one deadly encounter is... well... deadly.

I'm my current campaign, When the party themselves are attacked, not in a place they'd choose.. or even surprised, they have been radically weaker. One deadly with a smart foe on its own best terms puts hats on the floor.

[Azgeroth]

im currently playying a campaign where every encounter has been deadly.. and thats after they were nerfed!

it utterly depends on how the dice roll, but provided the party has a decent composition (at least 2 melee, ranged damage, support with healing) you should be able to manage 1 - 3 per long rest..

but again, its all down to the dice.. it only takes a few critical hits, and 1 or 2 crit fail death saves to seriously mess up your day, or walk an encounter.

[Biggstick]

Deadly is a guideline, as other posters above me have said. What really matters is how the creature(s) you're using in this deadly encounter approach combat. For example, if you're using three Sand Spiders (CR 7 from the Tome of Beasts pg. 364) in the way they're described, you'll absolutely decimate one-two party members that the Spiders get the jump on. If you have two of them attacking a single party member, it's very easy for a PC to go from completely healthy to making death saves before they've even rolled Initiative.