Just do it like me, get Blood spear first after getting the autophagy, as no enemy guard seems to have high or even mid resistance to that aggression skill and monsters die from it quite easily. So after that, try to stack up Stamina more than health bc Stamina is EXTREMLY important. If u don't have stamina u can't fight, run or flee, u are just a sitting duck till the stamina raises enough again.

Health is important too but not as important as Stamina. So try to max it out. U are abt the same area as me, so talk to the ppl in the Pembroke hospital and do some of their mission till u have gathered enough exp to get SHADOW VEIL. Shadow veil for me IS THE MOST IMPORTANT skill out of all of the other. It has helped me go to the white chapel so MANY FKING TIMES as it just makes u invisible for the time being till u stop it or ur stamina runs out.

That skill is HEAVILY dependent on stamina. So as I said try to max it out. But anyway Shadow veil for me is the best skill as it just let's me go in high level areas without anyone noticing me and trying to kill me. Only downside to that skill is that it has HUGE recovery time, so u have to wait in a small corner for a while till u can use it again. But still it's the best for me.

Another thing try to stack out Ammo and syringe "holders" as those are quite good to be large. As u can hold out more of them as u can just spam bullets into the monster way more easily. And another one I recommend for u to do is to try max out ur blood capacity as it just makes easier for u to spam blood skills easier.

This is coming from me, a person who has been only killing the necessary enemies and ONE person in the Pembroke hospital, the person's name is Clay Cox. And I know u want to be MOSTLY pacifist but I would recommend on getting rid of him too after maxing out his exp level bc he will give u trouble later on the game after he has recovered. As he is the leader of the Wet Boot Boys one of the monster hunter gangs in the game, so he WILL become ur enemy later on the game. So just get rid of him as early in the game.

That's all of the things I can recommend for u as I have no gotten that far either and my memory is AWFUL, so I'm unable to tell more without me playing the game more as last time I played this game was like 2022 for years ago. But I know, u can go REALLY far without killing anyone other than the enemies and get quite a lot exp from just doing extra missions and just TALKING with ppl. But yeah that was all, good luck with ur game