@BlinkRape i am consulting the wizards of the rpg maker forums now so hopefully one of them can come up with something lol. i've seen guys just take one look at a plugin and find the issue immediately. i got a response in like 3 minutes once that worked perfectly xD
given that i didn't make the plugin, it would probably be harder for me to debug anyway. when i'm debugging stuff with the code i've done, i can usually figure it out pretty easily because it's mostly just me swapping things around or missing a letter in a word or something. but if a plugin from someone else just isn't working in a super edge case scenario that i only got to with weird game design, i'm a bit more at a loss lol.
i've got a few other options if this doesn't work, but i'd rather not use them since they all compromise my game design in some way. it's not like i haven't had to make changes like that already, though, so i'm sure i'd be able to make it work.
@BlinkRape and we're already on to something! i didn't catch this since i have been way more focused on testing quests and NPCs and making sure battles can be beaten, but it appears that the EXP earned actually isn't cleared. it stacks infinitely.
that's... troubling. i'm going to have to test the entire game again and rebalance a lot of stuff. but i'm glad i found this issue now instead of when more people got their hands on it, which is exactly why i'm testing it myself first.