Replacing XP cost with essence point cost [3.5]

Any ability which has an XP cost for the character using it now has an essence point cost instead.

A character subject to the 20% penalty for uneven multiclassing instead may not reduce her essence total below 80 per character level.

Any character can gain essence points. The ceremony to gain these points has verbal and somatic components, and takes an hour or uninterrupted time. It can only be performed if the character has gained a level since the last time she performed this ceremony. The ceremony produces 400*character level essence points each time she performs it.

Isn't it easier to just say "each character has a 2000*level xp to spend on item creation"? XP isn't a term in the game world, so no need to complicate things further for no real gain.

I don't see any way it would be easier, and the confusion caused by giving two different numbers on the character sheet the exact same name would sure make things harder.

Variant revised. See original post.