Bows are very strong against lightly armored foes, and two-handers are good against everybody. Shields are extremely powerful at blocking one-hander damage, though you're better off trying to dodge two-hander attacks. I think the easiest start in Requiem is putting 2 points into heavy armor or 1 point into conjuration. 2 points in heavy armor gives you good protection against one-handers and arrows and stops the constant stamina drain. Conjuration lets you summon skeletons to pull aggro off you. Heavy armor greatly increases your mana costs so you probably won't be able to do both. Any kind of weapon is pretty powerful against light armor so that's why I suggest spending your first perk points on defense rather than offense. Healing is pretty hard until you get the 2nd level healing spell or a good stock of potions. Early on, your best bet is to use a slow heal over time (cast a healing aura or use a healing poultice), and then wait an hour so that it's like an instant heal. You can craft healing poultices at tanning racks with 3 tundra cotton + 3 blue mountain flower + 1 ale. (It's in the Requiem manual!) For some easy smith levels you can smith leather helmets and break them down at the tanning rack, and then repeat. For easy gold and alchemy levels you can craft high value potions. IIRC "damage ____ regen" and "resist ____" give good xp and have relatively common ingredients. At low levels you'll probably have to stick with fighting easy animals (mudcrabs, skeevers, wolves) and light armored bandits. Undead are hard without a silver weapon. Avoid poisonous enemies.