Reynolds wrote:But a lvl 10 bear shouldn't spawn near a newbie.
It seems that you are under the impressions that new characters should be "safe"; which is, I would argue, an erroneous premise. Since the introduction of wilderness spawning, this is my view:
1. You spawn in civilization by way of a charter stone. With that comes all the advantages and disadvantages of civilization: You are safe from level-X bears, but there are people around you that may rape or kill you and there may well be a problem with resource depletion.
2. You spawn in the wilderness, where it is certainly not safe. Rather the opposite; I would very much like to develop the early game (and mid-game, and end-game) in the wilderness into something much more of a survival game, where it's normal to die a couple of times in the process of getting the hang of it.