Re: leveling up. Vitality is always a good stat to get going early for more HP - the more hits you can take, the longer you last!
BB is very lenient in comparison to the other Souls games with Endurance and I personally don't think you need to start leveling that as early as the other games, but that is probably weapon-dependent (big heavy weapons take more stamina to swing). YMMV.
You get more damage output from your weapon in two ways:
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upgrading your weapon using consumable materials
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leveling up specifically the stats that your chosen weapon(s) scales with. It's the letter grading under
Attribute Bonus on the weapon stats info page in your equipment - S,A to E. S is best, E is worst.
Say your weapon scales A with Strength and D with Skill. So leveling up either of those stats will increase the damage bonus of the weapon, in this example more strength will give a bigger bonus because the scaling is better (A).
The bonus damage is the number with a + after the main damage amount - Physical Attack.
Hope that helps. All Souls games work this way so it gets more familar the more you play. Oh, and you can't really gimp a character so don't worry about that, a few wasted stat points here or there in a stat you're not benefiting much from won't make any difference in the long run.