Trollarmor is the way to go. I've got the complete set on lvl 4 and I still got a bunch of hides in my chest. Kiting them and killing them with arrows once you start to enter the Black Forest is the best way.

I actually had no problems killing trolls with a lvl 1 crude bow and wood arrows on my second char, wearing nothing but rags. I skipped leather armor mostly on this char and directly went to trollarmor.