My previous assassin was forced to play out as an archer for a long time, because sneak is so "weak" early game.

Is there a way to play an assassin from the start? I want to backstab and such using a dagger right of the bat. But my previous assassin had to play archer/sneak until maybe lvl20+ before I was capable of actually sneaking up on people in melee.

In the beginning of the game I noticed I could lvl sneak by sneaking back and forth over and over near the sleeping bear. Is doing this early kinda mandatory?

I always wanted a melee assassin but I were never able to play a proper melee assassin - cutting throats - as I wanted.

Tips to melee sneak kills early on? Or do everyone have this problem, that you are forced to play up to lvl20'ish before a melee assassin gets reliable?