The game has been pretty easy for the last 39 hours according to my save file. I'm on the third dungeon when you have to collect the three gems. The snow one. and basically every enemy I fight in the dungeon murders me. and if I try to grind elsewhere I either get no exp or get killed. do I need better familiars or something. Or do I just have to keep grinding?

There's an area called Billy Goat's Bluff (South) where an enemy called TokoToko occassionally spawns. If you can beat it you get 8000exp, and you might often find 2 in a single battle. They're little dark green guys with wizard staffs.

The area is on the autumn continent, south of the poison marshes. You'll see a town called perdida, and a long winding mountain path. If you follow that all the way you might run into a tokotoko. You can access the town iself after the stones quest (Though you can access the path with tokotoko's as soon as you have the dragon), and if you've been following Horace's side story he'll give you a spell which helps in engaging enemies without them running away.

Once you get to the end of the path you can use gateway to travel between worlds, which resets the enemy spaws. You'll only need to fight a couple of them to level up tons. Any more and the game will get a bit too easy.

You might need to change familiars too, depending on who you're using. I guess it's still Mitey and the other starters?