I’ll take really early as before skeleton. If you look hard enough, bone swords (1/200 drop rate, 16 melee damage) and bone pickaxes (1/50 drop rate, 50 picaxe power) can drop from Undead Miners. Then there’s the Katana (also 16 melee damage) that can be bought from the traveling merchant. And don’t forget the Water Bolt (17 magic damage) that can be obtained by going to the dungeon and breaking the shelves near the entrance. Also, Chain Knives (11 melee damage) have a 1 in 250 drop chance from cave bats. All of these are kinda hard to get, but should help beat EoC and at most Skeletron. Also an iron bow with tons of fire arrows is slightly OP.