Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Ieniemienie 05-21-07, 01:31 PM	very straight-forward question: If I summon undead (skeleton or zombie) with the animate dead spell, are the undead which are under my control added to the CR of the party? My DM wants to know, because he is planning on raising the difficulty of the encounters... Thanks in advance
Vegepygmy 05-21-07, 02:16 PM	Your party does not have a CR. But the answer to your question is no, skeletons and zombies you animate do not alter the amount of XP you receive. The ability to summon monsters and/or animate corpses are already accounted for in the XP equations.
Ieniemienie 05-21-07, 02:28 PM	i mean; has the DM, ruleswise, a reason to raise the CR of the average encounter we face as a party because of the undead?
Thiez 05-21-07, 02:39 PM	Yes, he does. A party with 40 zombies will be stronger than a party without 40 zombies. Certain undead give significant advantages (Slaymate from Libris Mortis gives metamagic spellslot adjustment reductions, niiice!). But I don't think you should be getting less xp. By the rules (strange and arcane as they may be) those undead are part of your character, cause you got a control limit. And you *did* spend some money on them, didn't you? (Yes there are ways to animate dead without components.) Remember there is a big difference between summoning and animating undead. (Not really relevant in this discussion right now (could become important once the debate starts), but it's important).
HellflameArcanite 05-21-07, 02:53 PM	I don't think so. For this purpose, I would say that they are a kind of equipment, because you spent money on the components and time that otherwise could have been spent earning xp on those spells. It's like scribing a scroll or crafting a magic weapon, but on the other hand it costs only 25 gp. I leave it up to the highly intelligent people above who have actually picked a side.
Mirtek 05-21-07, 03:00 PM	On a related issue: There was a Sage Advise about whether the undead of a necromancer opponent would increase his CR and give more XP. The answers was that if they were created some time ago and the necromancer had all spell slots back and ready for the fight the zombies should give extra XP. If he created them on the fly just a short time prior to the battle and was thus missing some spell slots for the fight, the zombies should not grand extra XP But the Sage didn't seem to have thought about the case that the costs for the material components to cast the spell could have been subtracted from the necromancers equipment and that this might made the DM equip him with one wand less he would have otherwise had for use in this battle. On the other hand that would punish the PCs twice, making them fight extra opponents without extra XP and even with less loot (since they could have otherwise claimed the wand after the battle)
mvincent 05-21-07, 05:13 PM	i mean; has the DM, ruleswise, a reason to raise the CR of the average encounter we face as a party because of the undead?Yup. Animated dead can significant affect play balance (and so should be monitored anyway), but there's certainly nothing wrong with the DM increasing the average CR's of your opponents... it just means that you will be getting XP that much quicker. That's still following the rules. If however your DM instead treats your effective character level as higher in regard to calculating your XP, maybe you should talk to him about this. That is changing the rules.
Ieniemienie 05-21-07, 05:23 PM	thank you all for the imput :)
Phalo 05-22-07, 12:09 AM	On a side note if he does take some of your xp see if you can give the zombies class levels that xp has to go somewhere and having 30 zombie 1/fighter is better than 30 zombies.