1. Always be sneaking. If you are seen by one hostile enemy, they will all come charging at you at once and mob you to death.
2. Learn to throw. As has been said, you can throw anything. At first you won't hit too often, but as your skill builds up you'll be able to kill something by chucking water at it. Once something passes out from pain after you've been pelting it with rocks, you can walk up to it and kill it with your main weapon without being seen by the others.
3. If you get caught - RUN! Try to duck behind a tree or something so you can sneak again. Enemies are pretty stupid on this front. If they watch you run behind a tree and then you successfully sneak, they'll just stop chasing you immediately. "Huh. Guess he vaporized behind that tree. Only logical explanation. No need to go check." Then you can sneak back over and start pelting them with rocks again.
4. Check town fortresses for armor, good weapons, and most importantly, stacks of bolts and arrows. Throwing those can get you instant headshot kills even with mediocre skill in throwing, and they come in easy-to-carry stacks.
This is how I start all my adventurers. Most of them still die pretty quick, but if you manage to survive a while and build up some good stats and find some great armor, you can become a killing machine. And then you can die hilariously by a lucky shot from a kobold with a copper knife.