What would be the safest, not-cheesy way to level grind in a sand-box like setting?

[Quertus]

I just checked, it's only DC 10. So if you put in 4 ranks, take 10 on the check, and don't have a Wisdom penalty you can provide for yourself and two other people.

DC 10? Oh, that's much easier. If Classes are a thing at T=0, only 1/3 of your population has to take classes with Survival as a Class Skill and spend their days foraging. OTOH, if classes are unlocked via some strange civilization skill and tech advancement tree, then they've just got their Humanoid HD... is Survival a Class Skill for a Humanoid HD? If not, then they can take at most 2.0 ranks, and 1/2 your population needs to be dedicated to foraging initially.

For your man-sized humanoids. Other creatures will have different results.

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So, were I really simulating a 3e world from T=0, IMO all of the Humanoid races "play the same", more or less. The races that are particularly interesting / have different tempos include

• Wererats - Good defense vs many things, great at T=0 (especially if nobody gets classes until they are unlocked) while still being able to earn XP. But they level with more difficulty, and most hit a much lower level cap than Humanoids.
• Most Lycanthropes - great early game; can't level easily or at all. Best strategy is to partner with other race(s), have them become Lycanthropes when they hit the end of their leveling curve.
• Dragons - Powerful, flying, ranged, magical, automatically improves with age. About the only way to level is to hunt really high CR targets (while at the right age). Best (or funniest) target/class combination? Hunting Deities, to level in Ur-Priest. Otherwise, Dragons work best when they don't get into fights, as those offer them nothing.
• Beholders - Really powerful from the start; about the only class worth taking is Beholder Mage, but XP is hard, and their power arguably drops with that 1st level and losing their Antimagic.
• Sprite.Pixie - Flight and Invisibility mean they can kite (or avoid losing scenarios) like nobody's business; small size means they need little to eat (Survival gives additional "man-sized portions" with no reference to the size of the being making the roll), and great stats for Rogues and (arcane) Casters. Unlike Wererats, these seem able to reach higher level IME, even if they die a little more often.
• Petal - small, easily fed fliers with even better stats than Pixies, with less LA and therefore easier to level to boot! Humanoids can't fit in their fortresses, and they lose most of their mobility advantages in theirs. And having almost no carrying capacity definitely impacts their options.
• Maugg (sp?) - reproduction based on getting enough money to Craft more of themselves. And, if in a run where Classes need to be unlocked, they start with Sorcerer. EDIT: Also, they don't eat, so no need to have anybody foraging. They also don't sleep, so (for example) their whole society could escape an Undead Hoard.
• Anthropomorphic Bat - Small size & Wisdom Bonus means minimal foraging, so most can be doing other things; flight for defensive evasion or kiting; easy to level. About the only real downside is not great stats otherwise, especially at the start.
• Deities - If on the world, they're just dead, so that's not interesting. If "projecting", they care about number of followers (as that determines how long they're locked out from "projecting" if they "die"). If (say) there's a Deity of each race, they care about their race's strategy, as it affects what Spheres they get access to. Completely different priorities and play than any other race.

So, were I to write something to try to simulate a new, artificial 3e world, I'd include at most 2 creatures of each of these playstyles (ie, 1-2 powerful Lycanthropes, 1-2 Dragon races), plus a bunch of Humaniods and other "playable" races (Treant, Troll, Ogre, whatever), each with their own Racial Deity who starts with no Spheres. The choices the races make determine the Deity's spheres (so the Dino-riding Elven Barbarians might find that their Deity gets Strength and Lizard as their spheres or something).

"Unplayable" races (those that exist) would exist as "random encounters" for terrain. If enough are encountered and killed in a given amount of time (varies by creature type), that element is removed from the random encounter table; over time, nearby populations (ie, random encounters from adjacent areas) may replace the "no encounter" entry that was left behind by their local extinction, favoring favorable terrain and a few other factors. This would allow races to custom tailor their environment. Note that "us" becomes a Random Encounter; ie, in a Human City, potentially all of the Random Encounters are "Human(s)". Animals would definitely be part of the Random Encounters. Anything that is a Random Encounter can also be explicitly "Hunted".

In a slightly more sophisticated version, "random encounters" might hunt one another, and, when a population in an area grows too great (creatures with no predators - Deer in an area with no Wolves, for example), their Random Encounter Rate increases, and eventually spills over into neighboring areas (even if their Random Encounters haven't been wiped out yet). Meaning that patrolling a wider area is important for keeping Undesirables out (the Elven Rangers with Chosen Enemy: Cats know what I'm talking about).

Some races (like any half-, including half-elves and half-ogres and half-dragon everything, but also the aforementioned Vampires, infected Lycanthropes, and Quasilycanthropes) are emergent - they don't exist at T=0, but can be created through play.

Anyway, that's how I might build such a thing, which impacts how I think about the question of "how would one (plan to) safely level-grind a character in a world with random programmatic AI advancement of a race, under 3e rules". And I doubt there's many better answers than, "high-level friends guide one or more low-level noobs through minimal threats in a carefully-crafted environment" "in a society that Empowers its Youth with Items / Mythals / etc".

Now, how many societies can get to the point where they can afford to send their children to college? That can depend on a lot of variables, but I think those that do, win.