Combat (The Ardent): Surprise Round, Round 1, Round 2
You decide that enough is enough and with a subtle move you attempt to trip the lady. She reacts deftly and avoids it, and in turn, hikes up her skirts and briskly moves away from the scene.
The man behind you with the nasty voice, looks like a seedy middle-aged man, short of stature, with a scraggly pair of side-burns, a sallow complexion and an unshaven, mean-looking face that resembles a bull-terrier's only, uglier. He wears clothes that although of fine cut and quality, much like the maiden's are old now and out of fashion.
Just in time you see the dagger in his hand fly towards your back. The blow was easy to deflect with your arm but the other man, leaping across the table, made a grab for your waist.
You dodged back a little and pushed him down on the table, his grapple unsuccessful.
DM: You just initiated a surprise round in which I gave you the first action. Everybody has now had an action. In the following round, you're last in the initiative order.
The man on the table grunts, gets up and attempts to kick you from a standing position. But you duck your head under the blow with ease.
He's a burly man in simple clothing. A little overweight and already sweating from the effort of fighting.
The older man recovers from your deflection and takes another stab at you.
"It's a fight ye want is it? Eh? Well, McDuggen'll give it to ye!"
An inexpertly aimed blow is easily dodged by you but now you have the whole tavern in an uproar and looking on.
Ignoring this, you line up the guys ugly mug and aim a blow. Seeing you are doing so and with dagger in hand, he takes the opportunity to lunge forward again but the blow glances off the armour underneath your silken garments.
With precision, power and skill, you bring your fist down on the little mans pug-face and hear the distinct wet 'splotch' sound of it hitting home and hitting home hard.
He staggers for a second, blood dripping down from his face as he tries to recollect himself but with a shake, he comes to and glares in your direction.
DM: Heh, everybody is missing except you! You landed a solid blow, doing 5 points of sub-dual damage but he's still on his feet.
The man on the table decides it'd be a real good idea to land on you and so you feel him topple on to you and drag you down. But with resolute strength and agility, you shrug him off and he rolls to the side, behind you with a grunt.
The woman seems to have disappeared but the ugly little man is still thirsting for blood and so takes yet another slash at you, this time, however your attention is distracted between him and the brute behind you and as he lunges, you feel the blade snick past your armour and almost pierce your flank. Luckily, the blow was averted by the twisting of your torso at the last second.
The entire tavern has been whooping and holloring for blood. Shouts of "Get 'im McDuggen!" and "You've got 'im where ya want 'im now!" and "Kill the filthy foriegner!" have been echoing about you but you had not noticed until now because until now you hadn't drawn your sword. It was thus the sudden absence of the shouts and calls that alerted you to their former existence.
In front of you, McDuggen wields his little dagger in wide-eyed terror. He seems focused on the massive falchion now glittering before him. Behind you, you can hear a slight wimpering and guess it's coming from the brute.
DM: Ok, it's still the second round, however as you said you would prepare to use deadly force, I decided to let you say yay or nay on it. You've used a move-equivalent action to draw and thus still have a standard action which you can use to attack either the brute behind you, McDuggen in front of you, or alternately, you can replace it with a move-equivalent to move up to 30-ft. If you move, you'll provoke attacks from both opponents.
The current situation is illustrated here: Battlemap.
