Is there an easy way to make all my party be the same level/xp?

[Black Hammer]

So my animal companion and merc recruit are behind the rest of the party by about 3,000 XP. This mainly annoys me for abstract reasons rather than powergaming; is there an easy way to make everyone the same, even if it takes XP off the others?

[provokastoras]

you can play with the option share exp with all party members. Now keep in mind that people joining later might be lower or higher level than hour group depending how much exploring you did. however typically lower level. mercs are always recruited at the level of your main character but with 0 extra exp. one good way to make sure they are the same level with the rest is to hire them at max level though it costs quite a bit.
that being said completely synchronising their leveling is quite hard and very very annoying. whenever i have to level up more that a couple of people at the same time i find it time consuming and boring.
also 3k exp are a very small amount/ I know it seems a lot up to level6 but after that you need increasingly 50k 10 k 300k and a couple of million exp to level so 3k is not even noticeable. there are encounters on end game giving 12 k exp per kill chances are your group will be leveling the same time at that point.

[Stink Bug]

Also note that animal companions do not level as characters do and their level is dependent on their “hosts” class levels; a level 20 Druid for instance will only have a level 16 companion

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions/

Rangers and animal domain clerics also get a -4 to their companion progression unless they take the boom companion feat.

[=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil]

Easiest way is to use mods to set everyone to the same level. I've got a pinned thread about mods

[Sephiroth]

I thought the default for XP was set to share and for everyone. But anyway check your options menu look at difficulty and you will see share XP and also skill users get XP only or share with everyone.

I think there are still circumstances in which your character will not be exactly the same experience. Sometimes you get people later and they start out at different levels.(I think)

[Black Hammer]

Originally posted by =NK= Col. Jack O'Neil:

Easiest way is to use mods to set everyone to the same level. I've got a pinned thread about mods

Yeah, that's what I ended up doing, grabbing Bag of Tricks to set my mercs to the same thing as everyone else.

[=[NK]= Col. Jack O'Neil]

If it really bothers you, there's also an option in either bag of tricks or I think kingdom resolution, to remove the - 4 penalty to advisors for kingdom stats