Tobe completely honest, at least 60% of my characters die within the first 6 hours. The sun rises at about 5:40 on Day 1, and I start at balls.
Many, many, of my titular characters never even see their first sunrise.
My last death was a character who found a basement and some decent armor. He was able to 1v1 zombies relatively okay, but like ive said, you dont need to nor should you want to 1v1 zombies.
Anywho all it took was 1 brute while he was waiting for the nearby zombies to suicide into a burnng housefire. The brute tossed me out a window, and then I was too slow to outrun a skeleton dog. I had to set fire to the dog, which illuminated me to nearby zombies, and a shrieker caught on and I was cooked.
Another survivor found a darkman, and foolishly tried to loot the complex. He accidently cursed himself, and with 2 melee skill and a makeshift crowbar he was not going to be killing it. So he left the house to go find a grenade or enough supplies to make a molotov. Well, wherever it went I couldnt find it and couldnt remove its curse.
Another survivor got hemmed into a burning building by waves of zombies and the fires themselves.
By the by, those three deaths are all within the last 24 hours. Death is commonplace.
Deaths happen. Part of rouguelikes is how cheap life is. Its a story, and a learning experience.
pedit:
Also, you may wish to start with a static NPC. Static NPCs are far, far more skilled than random wandering NPCs, and usually have items to share and may even travel with you. They have good weapons and are capable of at least distracting zombies if not outright being a bodyguard.
Looting their dead bodies is quite worthwhile too. The NPC who starts at your location is never going to start out hostile to you.
