XP for Animal Companions?
- Thread starter jaults
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You are right... It doesn't. I think that the party would get experience from defeating the animal/familiar etc. if they also get into combat.
But if the DM just has the familiar in the area, giving the sorcerer 'alertness' etc. then he/she/it isn't really helping out and isn't making it any harder to kill.
Experience is based on the amount or resources needed to succeed over the foe.
However, if the adversary were also able to 'summon monster', these new foes do not count in the experience total as they are already in the CR of the spellcaster.
But if the DM just has the familiar in the area, giving the sorcerer 'alertness' etc. then he/she/it isn't really helping out and isn't making it any harder to kill.
Experience is based on the amount or resources needed to succeed over the foe.
However, if the adversary were also able to 'summon monster', these new foes do not count in the experience total as they are already in the CR of the spellcaster.
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
This is, I believe, technically correct. It is also, I believe, really silly.
Imagine a pair of mated brown bears that live out in the woods. They're guarding some cubs, so they attack the hapless party of adventurers on sight. This is an el5 encounter, and the PCs get XP for defeating two CR3 creatures.
Now add a 6th-level NPC druid to the mix. She lives in the woods and doesn't adventure, and therefore can have double her level in HD of animal companions: these two brown bears are her companions. She can spend the battle doing things like casting entangle on the PCs, greater magic fangs on the bears, and then barkskin and shillelagh on herself and wade into combat all nastilike.
Now it's a el6 encounter, and the PCs get XP only for defeating a CR6 creature. Note that if the druid hadn't cast animal friendship on the bears -- if, for example, she'd trained them to guard her the hard way -- then the encounter would be el7-8, despite the fact that she wouldn't have nearly as good coordination with them as that granted her by the spell.
Can anyone tell me what the XP a party of 5th-level PCs would get for these two encounters? My guess is that, despite the significantly harder nature of the druid encounter, the PCs won't get significantly more XP for it.
Daniel
Imagine a pair of mated brown bears that live out in the woods. They're guarding some cubs, so they attack the hapless party of adventurers on sight. This is an el5 encounter, and the PCs get XP for defeating two CR3 creatures.
Now add a 6th-level NPC druid to the mix. She lives in the woods and doesn't adventure, and therefore can have double her level in HD of animal companions: these two brown bears are her companions. She can spend the battle doing things like casting entangle on the PCs, greater magic fangs on the bears, and then barkskin and shillelagh on herself and wade into combat all nastilike.
Now it's a el6 encounter, and the PCs get XP only for defeating a CR6 creature. Note that if the druid hadn't cast animal friendship on the bears -- if, for example, she'd trained them to guard her the hard way -- then the encounter would be el7-8, despite the fact that she wouldn't have nearly as good coordination with them as that granted her by the spell.
Can anyone tell me what the XP a party of 5th-level PCs would get for these two encounters? My guess is that, despite the significantly harder nature of the druid encounter, the PCs won't get significantly more XP for it.
Daniel
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There are certainly some oddities of various kinds in the experience point system. But the oddity in this case is in how the experience points for multiple creature encounters add up, not in the experience points for the single druid (including animal companions).
Why? Think about it this way: is your 6th level druid all by her lonesome of equal power to the other 6th level characters in your party? If so, then her animal companions clearly make her overpowered, don't they? But in fact, you'll find in play that the druid needs her animal companions to equal the power level of the other characters. Hence, the EL of a druid plus her animal companions is equal to the druid's level.
And therefore, if fighting a 6th level druid and two trained (non-companion) bears gets you more experience than fighting a 6th level druid (including her two companion bears), or insufficiently more experience than fighting the bears by themselves, that indicates that the system is giving too much experience for fighting the bears. (Not that it should give more experience for fighting the druid with her animal companions ...)
One caveat-fighting a druid in her home grove (the only place she'd likely have twice her hit dice in companions fighting with her) would be of sufficient difficulty to justify an ad hoc experience award increase of at least 50%. So it's not quite as bad as it seems ...
Why? Think about it this way: is your 6th level druid all by her lonesome of equal power to the other 6th level characters in your party? If so, then her animal companions clearly make her overpowered, don't they? But in fact, you'll find in play that the druid needs her animal companions to equal the power level of the other characters. Hence, the EL of a druid plus her animal companions is equal to the druid's level.
And therefore, if fighting a 6th level druid and two trained (non-companion) bears gets you more experience than fighting a 6th level druid (including her two companion bears), or insufficiently more experience than fighting the bears by themselves, that indicates that the system is giving too much experience for fighting the bears. (Not that it should give more experience for fighting the druid with her animal companions ...)
One caveat-fighting a druid in her home grove (the only place she'd likely have twice her hit dice in companions fighting with her) would be of sufficient difficulty to justify an ad hoc experience award increase of at least 50%. So it's not quite as bad as it seems ...
EOL
First Post
With this and so many other things the DM has to exercise his judgement. If an enemy wizard spends the entire combat summoning creatures and nothing else, then it makes a certain amount of sense to only give XP for the wizard, because summoning creatures was what he did, and nothing else. If someone has a whole host of things already available and putting them into combat doesn't take the main baddy any time at all then I would say to count them.
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
Christian, here's an even clearer example of the silliness of this situation:
Woof is a wolf who's really hungry, and who attacks a party of 1st-level adventurers. They kill him and get 300 xp.
In the second round of combat, Bob the druid shows up and sees the PCs fighting a wolf. Bob joins the combat. The PCs kill Bob, and gain another 300 xp -- 600 xp in all.
Fortunately, Bob hadn't cast animal friendship on the wolf at some point. If he'd done so, the two of them might have coordinated their attack; the wolf might know some tricks that would've made him more effective in combat. And the PCs would have gotten 300 xp total for defeating the two enemies, instead of 600 xp: Woof would have been part of Bob, not a separate threat.
Silly enough yet?
Daniel
Woof is a wolf who's really hungry, and who attacks a party of 1st-level adventurers. They kill him and get 300 xp.
In the second round of combat, Bob the druid shows up and sees the PCs fighting a wolf. Bob joins the combat. The PCs kill Bob, and gain another 300 xp -- 600 xp in all.
Fortunately, Bob hadn't cast animal friendship on the wolf at some point. If he'd done so, the two of them might have coordinated their attack; the wolf might know some tricks that would've made him more effective in combat. And the PCs would have gotten 300 xp total for defeating the two enemies, instead of 600 xp: Woof would have been part of Bob, not a separate threat.
Silly enough yet?
Daniel
DWARF
First Post
Ah, but you're silliness breaks down when you remember that you shouldn't award full Xp if the opponents aren't at full power.
So when Bob the cleric shows up and attacks the PC's for killing Woof, he doesn't have any animal companions and should be maybe 150 Xp.
What I find silly Pielorinho is that according to your "silliness in the system" if a group of 1st level PC's ran across a level 20 mage who'd lost his spellbook and used all his memorized spells up, you'd give the PC's the full 46,800 Xp (the max you can because the Xp table doesn't cover this...)
So when Bob the cleric shows up and attacks the PC's for killing Woof, he doesn't have any animal companions and should be maybe 150 Xp.
What I find silly Pielorinho is that according to your "silliness in the system" if a group of 1st level PC's ran across a level 20 mage who'd lost his spellbook and used all his memorized spells up, you'd give the PC's the full 46,800 Xp (the max you can because the Xp table doesn't cover this...)
alaric
First Post
You seem to be forgetting that if a druid doesn't have animal companion cast on the animal in question then it should have another animal companion working with him that you aren't accounting in the scenario.
This is the same thing you get with a mage who focus's on summoning. If he gets a head start he can summon huge numbers of creatures, none of which add any XP to the encounter. Is it silly? maybe, but no more so than gaining full XP for both the summoned monsters and the mage, since the mage spent all his time/spell slots conjuring forth the creatures.
This is the same thing you get with a mage who focus's on summoning. If he gets a head start he can summon huge numbers of creatures, none of which add any XP to the encounter. Is it silly? maybe, but no more so than gaining full XP for both the summoned monsters and the mage, since the mage spent all his time/spell slots conjuring forth the creatures.
Pielorinho
Iron Fist of Pelor
I think you guys are missing the silliness. Lemme simplify it:
Wolf = 300 XP
Wolf + 1st-level druid = 300 XP
Let's do some basic algebra here:
(Wolf + 1st-level druid) -wolf = 300 XP - 300 XP
1st-level druid = 0 XP
You see the problem? by the XP charts, a party gets no more experience for killing the wolf if it's accompanied by a first-level spellcaster than they get for killing the wolf alone.
That's a problem.
And thanks, DWARF, for suggesting that I award full XP for a first-level party who kills a 20th-level wizard who has no magic. However, I think that's a terrible idea; if you extrapolate it from what I suggested, you're doing something pretty wrong.
Daniel
Wolf = 300 XP
Wolf + 1st-level druid = 300 XP
Let's do some basic algebra here:
(Wolf + 1st-level druid) -wolf = 300 XP - 300 XP
1st-level druid = 0 XP
You see the problem? by the XP charts, a party gets no more experience for killing the wolf if it's accompanied by a first-level spellcaster than they get for killing the wolf alone.
That's a problem.
And thanks, DWARF, for suggesting that I award full XP for a first-level party who kills a 20th-level wizard who has no magic. However, I think that's a terrible idea; if you extrapolate it from what I suggested, you're doing something pretty wrong.
Daniel
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