Bloodborne is a hard game, but the will of gamers around the globe is even tougher. While Bloodborne might be hailed as a spiritual successor to the very popular Souls series of games, it's actually quite different. It's difficult, but in its own, unique way.
Redditors have banded together in a never ending fight to help one another traverse the perils of Bloodborne. The community is exceedingly driven and we're happy to see such companionship in the gaming world. One user, seanwise11, has crafted a guide for players to get the powerful "Blade of Mercy" weapon before you ever step foot inside any boss fight areas. This user has completed Bloodborne over ten times now, so you know his guides are top notch.
You can see his method below:
Method:
1) Create your character (Offtopic, but I really recommend Cruel Fate as an ideal origin for a Skill build), and select the hunters axe or saw cleaver as your first weapon.
2) You can kill the villagers or simply run past them. Run to the brothel with the laughing woman where you can roll through the crates and end up in the area just before the bridge to Eileen's location with the dog cages. For those of you who are unsure of what I mean, its just after the courtyard with the burning werewolf and the mob of villagers.
3) Head to Eileen's location, grab your free gesture and bold marks, and then kill her. There are a few ways to cheese her, one of them being shown here in Host Chan's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WzIJiXQ9x8 You can also bait her into falling into the lower section of the sewers for massive damage by luring her onto the wooden catwalk and having her attack. Either way, find the method that works best for you and kill her and grab her badge.
4) Now that you have the Crowhunter Badge, you need a whopping 40k souls in order to buy the Blade of Mercy. Remember, the plan here is to buy them without killing any bosses nor dedicating a lot of time to farming, wherein you could die and lose the souls.
5) We do this by utilizing the Forbidden Woods skip, which is accessed by the first Executioner enemy (the cloaked guy with the axe) in Central Yharnam. This video by TheFeebleSheep demonstrates how to do so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19UbHUreNdc I personally recommend using the axe or cleavers charge attack to get over the fence as opposed to doing the 2nd jump shown in the video. You can easily do this by standing by the sand pile on the ledge and charge attacking on an angle into the one tree.
6) Open the gate so you don't have to worry about doing the jump again should you mess up and die. Climb down the 2 sets of ladders, and run past the giants and the poison water and head outside of that cave where you will see caged dogs, kill all the dogs in the cages and doubleback through the poison water with the giants to Iosefca's clinic to utilize this exp glitch shown here in kenny stimmel's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyr1Yn69zmE Personally, I only used the glitch to get exactly enough blood echos in order to buy the Blade of Mercy, as I did not want to cheat the system too much and obliterate any challenge from the early game. However, if you felt so inclined, you could gather well beyond the blood echos required for the Blade of Mercy and bolster your levels right off the bat.
7) Enjoy your early Blade of Mercy which you can now play through the entire game with prior to any bosses and with minimal headache / time invested!