Hey again!
We have a whole gambit of changed rules (overly used or misunderstood or imbalanced rules, etc)
I have a document which describes these house/optional rules changes.
It covers all sorts of rulings discussed on this forum and some that weren't.
One of the huge topics was Talents/Flaws. Things like stacking talents and picking overly picked flaws (albino and colorblind) to match things like Power.
We cleared the air on all that stuff. Almost all the Talents are useable except for BbaWG (Blessed by a War God) and Power.
As far as starting a character goes, if the group starts at 1 then everyone starts at one. Since we only play every 2 weeks then the players usually get around 5k exp per game. More at higher levels. So you advance about every 2 weeks. It’s nice that way, because you only have 24 game sessions and within an "actual" year you can hit 12th to 15th level. However, if you play less you will get less, which goes without saying.
I can send you the rules changes if you like! Let me know.
Currently still "alive" high levels include a 22nd Paladin (evil) and a 23rd level Fighter and Thief (which are currently in limbo since their campaign ended) 20th level Paladin and a 20th level fire mage.
The current campaign group is 10th level (and this campaign is about to come to an resting point for a while)