Celestial creatures get Spell Resistance based on their Challenge Rating - so how do you calculate the CR for an animal companion?
I'd use the creature hit dice table to determine its CR.
By strict RAW, animal companions have now CR of their own and the answer is 0.
I have a similar, if not the same question, about Eidolons. I plan on sending a few after the party, but I don't know just how strong it is CR wise...
By RAW you'd either gain the full XP for having "defeated" the Summoner or nothing because you were never really fighting the Summoner.
This is a case where GM fiat is necessary, since neither interpretation of the rules is reasonable.
I think it'd be fair to treat their CR as whatever the character's Effective Druid Level would indicate
This is too generous, IMO.
A 9th level Druid would have an 8 HD animal companion, which is halfway between CR 5 and CR 6 based on the guidelines for animal CR's.
Just a little note, I did a study on the subject, and I have concluded that an animal companion's CR is actually fairly low. I was trying to compare the "stonelord" paladin archetype's elemental companion, and while veryfying the monster creation rules, I came to the following comclusion: animal companions have fairly low CR the higher you go. For someone with 20 levels of druid, the animal companion is merely CR 11-12, if you consider the monster creation rules. I did the verification because I thought the stonelord's elemental companion was weaker, but it is not. The natural armor/stat boosts given to the companion are necessary to keep it's CR up (hit dice increases alone dont do much). The indication of the previous poster is pretty right as far as CR is concerned.
As for the eidolon question, I'm not sure, but I wouldnt be surprised it would work out to something similar. However, I you need eidolons to fight, you can always use the stats of an "unbound" eidolon, my DM has sent a few against us, they can be tough.
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Celestial creatures get Spell Resistance based on their Challenge Rating - so how do you calculate the CR for an animal companion?I'd use the creature hit dice table to determine its CR.
Ooh! Good find. Seems exactly what I'm looking for.
As has been said, the CR of an animal companion or an eidolon is non-existent because they are just class features. A PC druid level 10 is CR 10. His animal companion is part of that. It's a non-question to ask what is the separate CR of the animal - in exactly the same way as asking what is the CR of Wildshape or what is the CR of spellcasting.
That said, I can see the OP's dilemma of calculating SR based off of CR, so the suggestion of using the Creature Hit Dice Table is a good one for handling that.
I have a similar, if not the same question, about Eidolons. I plan on sending a few after the party, but I don't know just how strong it is CR wise...
You don't award XP for this. It is still a class ability.
By way of comparison, suppose you ran the same encounter, but instead of a summoner, you choose a wizard. A few times during the adventure, the wizard teleports in, casts a fireball on the group, then teleports away. Do you reward XP for defeating the fireballs?
Technically, you don't reward XP for every fight - the rulebook says to keep a running total and reward XP at the end of the session or even at the end of the adventure. In this case, you reward XP for defeating the summoner at the end of the adventure, along with other XP for the rest of the stuff they do, and zero XP for the eidolon because it's part of the summoner XP.
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As I recall,