XP question

[TracerBullet42]

So the party is fighting a woman and her pet. During the fight, the kill the pet first, then focus on her. She manages to animate the pet, and the party has to kill it again.

Eventually, they win the fight.

Does the party get double the xp for killing the pet twice?

 

[shilsen]

No. The animation of the pet was using one of her abilities, which is factored into her CR. It's not really different than if she summoned a creature to fight for her, which the PCs would also not get XP for killing.

 

[Arkhandus]

Right, the party gets no further XP from defeating the pet a second time, no moreso than they would if the lady had cast Summon Monster III to create another minion. It's described in the DMG around the XP awards chart or somewhere thereabouts.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I agree with the other posters. On top of that, if the "pet" was an animal companion or some other creature granted by a class ability then the PC's don't even get XP for the "pet".

Olaf the Stout

 

[eamon]

I also agree with the above answers, but just want to mention that assigning XP is pretty finicky and arbitrary. You're perfectly within your right to add or remove XP for special circumstances, if you think that's warranted. The guiding principle is that the base XP amount includes all (short term) abilities of the creature - so unless the circumstances are somehow beyond normal for the creature (for example, the environment adds to the challenge or makes it easier), you shouldn't need to tweak too much. In any case, there are a lot of challenges in a game - even pretty big inaccuracies tend to balance out, eventually.