Are minions included in Necromancer's CR?

[Taku Ooka Nin]

So,
I was looking at Necromancers recently and I came to the question:
If Summoned Monsters are included in the Conjurer/Summoner's CR, would Animated minions also be included therein?
A level 5 Necromancer is CR 4, he probably walks around with 20 skeletons, but oh, lets not stop there, they're all Bloody Burning Skeletons so long as he could afford to do so.

So, we have a Necromancer walking around with 20 undead minions who could tear a party to pieces, but then again all of these undead are 1HD.

Would the Necromancer's Minions be calculated into the CR of the encounter, or would they be ignored similar to Summoned Monsters?

[Jeraa]

It depends.

If they are animated during the combat, then no. They would be no different that summoned creatures (the necromancer would be spending actions/spells to animate, instead of casting spells to attack directly).

If they are animated before the battle, then they should award XP.

[Taku Ooka Nin]

So, basically a nasty encounter would be the PCs kill 20 kobolds and start working on something, then they hear casting and give bloody burning kobold skeletons get up, next round the same thing, and after 4 rounds there are 20 bloody burning skeletons that don't give XP while the necromancer sits in his invisibility spell and watches the battle ensue?

[Kimera757]

Yes. Of course, the PCs get experience for killing 20 kobolds, plus XP for fighting the necromancer (even if there's no direct engagement).

[Propsken]

As each of the templates counts as double HD for purpose of the spell, Bloody Burning skeletons would take up the hit dice of 3 (double + double = tripple - welcome to d20) regular skeletons, so he'd have less; about 6 or 7 - just saying.
It depends on the encounter setup, really. If he raises them during the fight with him, they're part of his spell repertoire (indeed, like summons), and are included in his CR; no extra xp is awarded. If he raised them beforehand, and the PC's face them with or without the Necromancer, they would be seperate monsters, increasing the encounter's difficulty CR-wise, and granting their own xp rewards. If he raises them and flees, however, you could possibly argue for both cases; it could be treated as a seperate, scripted encounter, or as part of the Necro's powers, respectively offering full or no xp - but you'd get half xp for the Necro AT BEST - he flees before the fight.
For ultimate shenanigans, do both. Double skellies, singular reward. Ensue evil gloating. Why would the Necro care if he isn't in control of all of his ultimately disposable and highly replacable minions that won't bother attacking each other while he himself can fly over the battlefield out of reach anyway?

[Val'bryn]

As people have said, if the skeletons are faced separate from the Necromancer, they are there own encounter with full XP. If they are animated by the Necromancer on a previous day, and faced with the Necromancer, full XP for both because there is no loss of resources on the part of the Necromancer. Now, if the Necromancer animates them that day, and thus has lost some spell slots, and they are encountered together, then the skeletons give no XP, as they represent some of the Necromancer's resources. It's really no different than if the Necro cast his, as Bastion of Broken Souls called it, power-up suite.

[Claxon]

There's no real rules on this, but I agree that if they already exist when combat begins separate entities for XP/CR. If the necromancer spends turns during combat to create them they I wouldn't treat them as seperate. Important to remember, and can't remember where it's written off the top of my head, but you can only touch six creatures in a round with a touch spell. Animate dead requires you touch a corspe to create the creature, so you could at most create 6 creatures a round.

*Of course I got rid of XP a long time, so it's more about estimating appropriate challenge for me.

[Rikkan]

An animal companion is part of the CR of a druid. You don't award XP for it separately.

A necromancer who raises undead pays for raising and equipping her minions and those minions are part of her repertoire. You're not supposed to increase the CR for them.