From the Archives: First Round Death
During another mini-adventure, when we were a player or two down and played something other than the then-current campaign, I rolled up my stats and created a Human Fighter specialising in two-weapon fighting. It was a low-level adventure, so the character started at first level, and was accompanied by two other first level characters rolled up by the other players. My Figher had the Feats that made him adept at wielding both a long sword and a short sword at the same time, sacrificing the protection of a shield for more attacks.
We started the adventure in, unsurprisingly, an inn, where we all sat minding our own business enjoying a drink or two. Something rowdy started up, with some fellow quite rudely insulting a waitress. Well, my character was going to have none of that, so I stood up and went over to this ruffian to give him a piece of my mind and protect the honour and safety of the waitress. We went straight in to Initiative, which I managed to lose, and the bad guy got the first swing at me. Despite being good at fighting with two-swords and being honourable I was hardly the luckiest chap around, as this first swing by the bad guy hit me and hit me well: he scored a Critical Hit. With so much damage inflicted upon me I lost more than the Initiative, I lost my life. I dropped like a bag of spuds, with no chance of getting back up again. Waah!
There wasn't much I could do. My character was dead in the first round of the first fight, without even rolling any dice. The fight had to, and did, rage on without me. In the mean time, I took my second set of stats that I rolled, which weren't as good as the set I used to create my character, and created a second character for the adventure. I was able to finish the creation quite quickly, basing the new character on the one just killed, making him another Fighter with two-weapon fighting skills. I was able to walk in to the inn just as the fight finished and asked if anyone had seen my better-looking, more skilful brother, only to be shown his limp body on the floor, blood all around but no longer being pumped out of him. A quick, but obviously tearful, burial later and we were in to the adventure again as a party.
I later found out that had I not been felled straight away I would have picked up some bonus Experience Points for standing up for the waitress's honour. I'm sure my ghost would have appreciated that.