The xp for hard paths isn't much more than easy or medium. I rushed through easy paths with Smiddi and did mostly hard with Rolayne and they stayed the same level for most of it and were only a couple levels off at the end.
If you're not on a task you should be fine. I thought it reset me because when I finished the task for the tutorial it said you have completed a task and not 182 but then I went and did a task for kuradal and I had 182 completed.