Hello all, my party could use a bit of advice if anyone else around here has run our campaign. We've somehow ended up 6-10k XP behind (varying by party member) by the start of Book 3, and neither players nor GM can figure out why for the life of us. We avoided a couple of early fights, but I can't imagine that would have such a major impact.
At present, the party is level 5-6 and just began book 3. The party itself consists of 5 members:
Aasimar druid, Aasimar paladin, Elan vitalist (psionic), Changeling bard, and Human gunslinger
We were still at level 5-6 when we entered the fey forest near the end of book 2. Due to some rather conveniently-timed diplomacy checks, however, we managed to befriend the fey there instead of fighting them. As a result, we missed the entire dungeon but still got the key items we needed and had no problem activating the Dancing Hut (fey in toe). Our DM assures us he's parcelled out the XP we would have gained, but the party continues to lag far behind where we should be in book 3. None of us have any explanation. A few of us are concerned that we might have missed more content than anyone realized, but we have no frame of reference. It's possible we were under-leveled already by the time we entered the fey forest.
Is anyone out there familiar enough with the AP to perhaps tell us where we lost XP? Should we have been higher than level 5-6 upon entering the forest in Whitethrone? Or is it only after skipping it that the party is lagging? Please and thanks for any help the community can provide. T____T