Don't worry about getting gear from quests. Whatever cheap weapon you can find in EC is going to vastly outclass anything you can get from a quest at your level. You can farm up one or two hundred plat relatively easily as described
here. Beg a port to EC when you feel like getting a weapon (/who all druid 39 60, /who all wizard 39 60, send people tells and ask politely, explaining that you're new to the server, people will be happy to port you for free), see what people are selling, and find something cheap but useful.
Basically, what you're looking for in a primary weapon is this:
1) Piercing weapon (so you can backstab)
2) High damage (so your backstabs do a lot of damage)
3) Low delay (so you get more benefit from damage bonus, although at low levels this won't be as important)
4) Magic weapon (most weapons you'll find in EC are magic, but just make sure; you won't be able to hit a lot of stuff, like ghouls, without magic weapons)
What you're looking for in a secondary weapon is just anything you can put in your secondary slot with a good damage/delay ratio. They don't have to be piercing and it doesn't matter if the damage is high or the delay is low as long as the ratio is good. The secondary weapon isn't as important as the primary.
For armor, you can try and find a blacksmith to make you a suit of banded - a full suit costs about 85pp and is some nice AC (but no other stats). But I'd just focus on weapons; your armor isn't as important. Generally speaking, your mission armor-wise, once you have good weapons, will be to get your STR stat up high.
In terms of leveling, you'll wanna start grouping pretty soon. Rogues are very poor soloers unless they're very well geared. Crushbone, EC orcs, and Blackburrow are all popular spots starting at level 5 or so.