So, the other day I picked up demon's souls, and have been having a blast with it so far... Up until I got to the Tower Knight boss. I managed to kill all of the crossbow men around him, but I am having a very tough time defeating the actual boss. The targeting for me is not really helping (although I had no problems with it up to  this point, probably because you just only target the whole enemy, not specific body parts). After getting decimated by this boss a couple of times, I am going to try a different strategy. There is a way you can farm the red eyed knight in world 1-1 for souls and I have considered that. I am also thinking of just starting a new game and playing as a Royalty character (currently I am a knight) and using that soul arrow trick. So I'm wondering, which would be an easier way to defeat this boss?
 
Thanks for both your input and empathy.

I was a... Temple Knight? Is that a thing? Armoured character with heal to start. That Tower Knight gave me some trouble too. I think I ended up farming souls to get my magic stats high enough and bought Soul Arrow to take him down (with plenty of mp restorative items).

The Royalty class is certainly a way to make the opening sections a tad more manageable.  Against the tower knight, specifically, you can use the ramparts up top to block a lot of his shots and just pick and choose your opportunities to shoot him in the head.  If you run low on mp, the royal's fragrance ring restores it gradually so you could just hang back for a bit and let it recharge.  I ran with a dex/ranged build so I can't help much with melee builds, other than to say hit him in the back of the foot and try not to get crushed.

So Royalty would be a good idea, but is there a way for the knight to use a technique like the one the Royalty uses against this boss? Like instead of using Soul Arrow just get a bow and arrows, or will that not have the same sort of damage as Soul Arrow?

 Yup, either arrows or Soul arrows. Stay where the crossbow men you killed where and find the right rhythm on his animation to hit him in the head and at the same time avoid his ranged attack. 
 
  Getting people to help you out is always an option...a tedious option if there's not many people playing at the time, but 1 or 2 companions make all the difference in the world. You probably won't want to fight the second boss on the Tower of Latria alone :).

Compound long bow (or better) and heavy arrows.  The compound long bow can be found in 4-1.

You probably won't want to fight the second boss on the Tower of Latria alone :).  

So you don't have to do the levels in order? So if I went to the 4-1 level like you said, would the enemies be much harder than what my level can handle? Or do they scale to the player's level?

The Tower Knight signals his attacks like a year in advance. You should have plenty of time to get out of their areas of effect, and if you don't, it's got nothing to do with your stats. Unless all his attacks kill you in one hit so you don't even get a chance to use health items when you make a mistake, grinding isn't gonna help.

Whenever I got stuck on a boss in DS id first join someone elses game and help them out/try to pick up on their strategies, and if I still had trouble, summon my own posse to team up on that MF.  Demons Souls Multiplayer is the best!!

" So you don't have to do the levels in order? So if I went to the 4-1 level like you said, would the enemies be much harder than what my level can handle? Or do they scale to the player's level? "

I didn't even know you could lock on to enemies when I beat the Tower Knight. I beat it on my second try. The hard part is actually getting to him IMO, especially because of that fucking dragon.
 
If you just learn his attack pattern it should be no problem. Just make sure to bring plenty of healing items in case you get hit.

I beat the tower knight by taking off all of my armor, because you will probably die if you get hit anyway, and running to his behind every time he tried to strike me. Also, you can deal massive damage to him by attacking his heel until he falls down and then going for his head. Just watch out for his stomps.

Yeah, starting as the royalty class is like the easy mode (and there's nothing wrong with that), beating the tower knight with magic is piss easy, you just stay on top of the wall (in one of the spots where the crossbowman were) and shoot constantly at his head with  soul arrows, just avoiding his ranged attacks, but they are so slow that it is no problem at all.
 
I think that arrows will do a good job as well, it'll probably do less damage though, but still it's easy.
 
Now beating him with a melee only character, that's effin hard, my first character was a melee, I was able to beat him on the second try, all you have to do is hit him in the ankles until he falls, then hit him in the head, having a light character is key, because the evading roll is probably the single most important feature in the game, especially for melee characters, so you want your guy to be light in order to roll properly.
 
Also beating the game on the first run through is quite manageable, even with a melee only character, I beat the entire thing on my own, didn't have help in any of the bosses, new game+ is pretty much impossible though, especially without magic.

The game is meant to be played in the 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 4-1, 5-1, 1-2, 2-2 etc order. But most don't as the difficulty isn't always the same. However I would either try to summon some help for the Tower Knight, or go and do 2-1 first. That way you unlock the blacksmith there who can help you upgrade your weapons.
 
I think the order I did it was 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 1-2. By that time the Tower Knight wasn't so tough.
 
Rerolling really isn't needed, especially just for Soul Arrow. My character was a pure tank and everything went fine.

stay up where the archers were, and right when the knight launches his distance attack, hit him with a soul arrow magic and repeat until dead... once you cast it, run back some or else you might get hit by the knight's attack
 
it takes time, but is by far the easiest method

Beat 4-1 as fast as you can. You can get a club from one of the other early levels to help beat the skeletons. 
And there is a shortcut that bypasses most of the level.
The boss of 4-1 is pretty easy if you use melee, just watch his moves and dodge.
If you can get right up to him, then he shouldnt be able to touch you.
 
Then start farming the Grim Reaper in 4-2 for quick leveling.

Go royalty, complete 4-1, get Crescent Falchion (from behind the red skeleton), at this point you have a good enough weapon to beat most worlds.

You can build any class exactly the way you want. Every time you level up you decide what stats to increase. Currently I play as a Knight as well. The first thing I do, no matter what class I initially choose, is to farm 1-1 and get Soul Arrow. Then I farm 1-1 & 1-2 and get Evacuate. Those two are the only 2 spells you need as a melee character, and will help you to quickly get a good bow and makes farming a lot easier in the beginning.

" @Vorbis:  So other classes can get the Soul Arrow? "

Go through the game once as a Royal then you'll know the game well enough to start it off with a harder character the 2nd time around. That's what I did.

" @FeelTheFunkness: 

You can build any class exactly the way you want. Every time you level up you decide what stats to increase. Currently I play as a Knight as well. The first thing I do, no matter what class I initially choose, is to farm 1-1 and get Soul Arrow. Then I farm 1-1 & 1-2 and get Evacuate. Those two are the only 2 spells you need as a melee character, and will help you to quickly get a good bow and makes farming a lot easier in the beginning.

"

Possibly try raising luck and hoping for colorless souls to drop

" @Kazzurak:   Because 4-1 can be a real pain without Soul Arrow as a low level character, and I prefer Evacuate when I farm 4-2. Playing through 1-1 & 1-2 including bosses and red+blue eyed knights gives you enough souls fairly quickly. "

" @Chojin: But the new person might wanna increase stats instead of getting evacuate at that lvl also flame toss is better then soul arrow in 4-1. flame toss will stagger the black skeletons and you will be casting the next before hes near you, also theres a shortcut in 4-1 which will make u skip over half the stage if the enemys are the problem "

get a good bow and grind the fuck out of 4-2's first area.