Any chance one of the GMs can create a simulation character, start him with the estimated XP we've gained so far (what, 1000 + 24[days live] ? ) and then add an estimated daily casting bonus for the same time period so we can compare against my baseline and make sure it'll truly look the way we want? Like Tom said, things almost always work well at startup but you have to test them at higher levels to make sure it still works too.
That's how we switched to Concentration/Mana used for gains. I did some quick calculations and showed that the decay in the usage of energy/concentration as you skill up caused a large acceleration in skill advancement. We did the same sort of envelope calculation to show that you gain a boost to skills, but not something that is earth shattering. The real trick was the assumption that you'd have spells that would advance your skills. If you haven't noticed it rounds down, which slows gains even more.
