View source for Time and Experience (3.5e Variant Rule)

=== Earned Level and Actual Level ===

The rules below can cause a discrepancy between a characters experience level and experience total. In such circumstances, the level a character has the experience points for is the character’s earned level, while the level the character actual has is the character’s actual level. If a character whose earned level and actual level differ suffers level loss, both levels are reduced accordingly, and the character’s experience total is set to the midpoint of the previous earned level.