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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 6664267" data-attributes="member: 58172">On your first point, the NPC who helps in battle should get xp. The problem is, this makes xp calculations more complex. Moreover, NPCs can be at different levels and contributing to the combat with different degrees of helpfulness. One powerful NPC might only be defending oneself while refusing to help the party. One low level NPC might be earnestly trying to help with some degree of success.An animal is often like a low-level NPC. An adventurer who has a bear cub as a pet, is like a low-level NPC.Do NPCs at different levels advance at different rates? Xp rules suggest they should. Personally, I would try ‘flatten’ the levels as soon as it seems plausible, so everyone in the party is the same level.Including NPCs in the party makes obvious sense. The only difficulty is the math becomes more complicated for DMs who care about precise xp.Personally, I use xp to create encounters. But adventurers advance depending on number of encounters. A separate assessment decides if a particular encounter was really challenging enough to count, or perhaps too challenging.In some sense, the pet NPC gets xp.On the second point, a Fighter too might have a bear cup as a pet. In the case of a Fighter it is nothing like a cantrip.</blockquote>