So, besides innate talent for this game, how is one supposed to play on master difficulty from the jump? There's only so much you can do... and I'm getting OHK'd by the bandit leaders/thugs, which leaves me in a spot where I can't do much! Regular bandits are fine and I enjoy the challenge, but I'm struggling with tougher enemies. I've invested all my M:H:S points into health so far, only level 7 as of yet.

Tips? I know I'm a good player so I must be missing something!

You said it yourself - innate talent! You're good, but not that good.

Kidding aside, bandit leaders may be quite high level compared to regular bandits, and with them inflicting additional damage on Master, you may just have to push yourself a little more in terms of perks and your offensive and defensive capabilities.

Bandit chiefs are quite hard when under level 15. Even on Novice with non improved weapons.

Don't be afraid to take evasive action (run) and pick your strategy for any given situation very carefully. Advance slowly and make full use of your surroundings. What is your character and playstyle?

I play on legendary, and what I did was raise my sneaking and archery skills, along with some one-handed and block. My sneak was level 100 by the time I hit level 30, and my archery I think in the 60's. This really helped because of the critical hits sneak attacks do.

If you're gonna go in and use a one-handed weapon with a shield, make sure your stamina is high, because you need to bash the guy then give him a couple swings with your sword, then bash again.

Save up 500 septims and hire either Jenassa or Vorstag.
If you are playing as mage, you will need to conjure constantly. And you'll need a bow of absorb magicka since you will run out all the time.
Sneak archer is the best choice since you will seldom get hit, and your mercenary will act as a shield.
As some have said, you may need to run away from some fights and not come back until you have better gear.

There are quite a few ways of dealing with it -

• Wear the best available armor and smith/enchant it as best you can for that time
• or- Grind out smithing/enchanting/alchemy from the start and enter the world practically invincible just via carriage circuiting through vendors
• Know your perks and spend them wisely, some are almost indisputably a waste(the bleed/crit/armor pen ones for example) due to poor scaling while others will make your life dramatically easier.
• --You should have a build planned out from the start rather than just picking things as you go, unless you know the perk system in depth already
• Train up your armor skill of choice every level you can afford it
• Use your resources wisely and don't try to conserve things too much, learn what to sell and what to use or keep. - Alchemy is the easiest money early on if you know how to use it.
• If using melee, learn NPC attack patterns - they're predictable and can be the difference between taking only a hit or two instead of several in a row.
• Spend most of your level ups on health, when/if I ever hit 81 on my legendary DiD char(level 68 right now) I'll have 700 health and 350 magicka(Altmer).
• Make sure to get magic resist ASAP, magic is generally harder to avoid than arrows or melee weapons, especially shock spells
• Use summons and/or followers to tank for you. Barbas is ideal for this since he's invulnerable and will never even be forced to kneel at low health like other followers, although he is annoying.
• Use sneak and archery and be very careful, run away when caught or find unreachable locations.
• Use illusion to make NPCs fight eachother with frenzy, or pacify them to either skip the fighting or just to control them and safely whittle them down with sneak attacks.
• Invisibility and sneak used together can allow you to go through entire dungeons without fighting anything and just getting to the objective(s) or loot.

Much of this is very "cheesy" but I don't think you can play the game "normally" on master or legendary and expect not to be frustrated and/or killed, considering the weird jumps in level scaled enemy strength/frequency as well as how slow some defensive stats level up and how inaccessible magic resist is.

Very few of these topics coincide with my RP at this time. I already have a follower. All my points go into health for now. I will just avoid or be careful with the bandit leaders until I get some more skill upgrades.