My cleric was lvl 6 on friday
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Today I dinged 29, and have mostly leather with a few ringmail/bronze armor pieces. The most I've been given was 15p from Andain. I've had to skip a few non-essential spells, but for the most part if you kill things that net you at least some money, you'll be fine.
The group XP bonus is what does it. Get 6 nerds together and go hit Crushbone -> Unrest (sometimes you'll see twink scrub PKs in here though) -> Mistmoore.