So as it turns out, the answer is as follows:
1. Grind. Grind until you have outlevelled damn near everything around you. Grind until the game autokills the rat bandits for you. Grind until you can chug enough potions to cheese the Giant Rats. If you're doing this, upgrade your starting dagger to at least level 5 at the anvil behind the blacksmith, then equip it in your offhand to get an XP boost.
2. You should mostly level size, it's an overpowered stat that trumps every other option most of the time. It directly increases your damage and range, while also levelling all of your stats, so it gives you the best bang for your buck.
Any points you don't put into size, put into the stat your weapon scales with. If it's strength, level muscle, if it's intellect, level breasts, if it's dexterity, level legs, etc.
3. Get a weapon that isn't garbage. If you're a strength or intellect build, you can easily get a Blesser and a Pearlescent Fetish respectively just outside town.
Start by disregarding the guard's advice entirely by exiting town.
Take the dirt road, going left once you encounter the closed gate.
At the end of the dirt road, when you've officially passed the broken wall, take a right into the forest area, where you'll probably see a wooden staff with a pearl on the top. That's the Fetish, and if you're an int build, it will carry you through the game.
If you're here for the Blesser, just keep going into the woods, hugging the village wall. While you're here, open the gate.
Near a pile of boxes and a small group of tall grass, the sword (Blesser) will have a red hilt and be diagonally stuck in the dirt. Pull it out and you've got a decent strength weapon - not the best in the game but better than the shite dagger you start with, if only because it actually scales with something to a meaningful degree and doesn't require you to be within arm's reach of the enemy to actually hit them.
DON'T pull out the big sword in the stone, it'll crash the game with an assertion error.
If you're a dex build, you're shit outta luck, just use either of those weapons until you can cheese the Giant Rat (ON FLOOR 5 OR HIGHER) with potion spam, then finish the Blacksmith's key quest by backing out of the dungeon, going to the first floor, and opening the first door on the left to save the guy inside. Once you've done that, go back outside the dungeon to the blacksmith's shop, press Q to cycle the options and press E to talk to the smith, and he'll give you a Halberd called the Bard's Beak that has B Dexterity scaling and a pretty decent ability.
