a question about creatures bound with planar binding

[blelliot]

a bit of information beforehand: the group for whom I'm the DM is coming upon an evil mage to fight soon (most likely 3-4 weeks real time). I'm tinkering with this battle and when I looked at different meat shields, er.. minions to have, I was thinking of giving him various ice elementals to boss around (fitting, since he is a frost mage) Now the question I have is since he knows the party is coming for him (yay, scrying!!), and he will have a few days to prepare, would I need to figure the elementals into the XP for victory? Ive always understood that when a monster summons another monster for a fight, a DM does not figure the summoned monster into the XP because the summoned monster is part of the abilities of the original monster. So since this mage has greater planar binding and some time on his side, would you guys give XP for the elementals as well? thanks for any input!

[tyckspoon]

I would include them as part of the ECL/xp/treasure awards for the fight, yes. The way I figure it is, if the creature spends an action and a resource *during* the fight to get allies, they don't count. If they were set up *before* the fight, they count. In the first case, those allies represent the enemy's action; they're the alternative to casting a Fireball or whatever else it is that creature could be doing. In the second, there's no immediate impact to those creatures being there; the actions and the spells required to have them happened days ago. The situation is basically the same as if you instead had a fight with, say, your ice wizard and some Frost Giants he was allied with.

[Brookshw]

I'm inclined to think they grant xp, they're called, not summoned, different rules.