The spider matriarch is a bit of a trick fight, though still tough, as at certain points she will ...
phase and stand on the webs, which you can shoot to drop her down to the ground below for lots of damage. If you can manage to sneak in and destroy some of her eggs with alchemists fire or spells without her noticing that also helped, though I only managed to dispose of one batch this run so it was still a close-run thing at level three.
In general, though, I've felt that progression perhaps has been slowed down a little but then I did think it was too fast in EA. The goblin camp should be doable starting at level 3, especially as you'll probably level up to 4 while there. Or if you can deal with the spider matriarch that might be enough to bump you a level.
My party are currently about half way up level 4, and at that level I've just
dealt with Ethel, the swamp creatures near where we can find evidence to confront Kagha, and recruited Karlach and dealt with Anders
so you don't need to be level 5 to do any of that. Though what being lower level does sometimes mean is that you need to find different ways of doing things so you aren't quite so reliant on your party's combat prowess to complete quests.
