3.5 - Question on Improved Animation

[Talya]

Improved Animation
Type: General

Your undead animations are unusually powerful.
Prerequisite: Spellcaster level 6th+, 5+ ranks in Knowledge (religion)
Benefit: Undead you create using animate dead or the create undead spells gain an additional Hit Die and a +1 competence bonus to attack and damage rolls. Note: Undead do not gain an increase in size due to the increased Hit Dice from this feat.


How does that interact with the limits in Animate/Create Undead spells?

Regardless of the type of undead you create with this spell, you can’t create more HD of undead than twice your caster level with a single casting of animate dead...No matter how many times you use this spell, however, you can control only 4 HD worth of undead creatures per caster level.

[peacenlove]

The HD granted does not apply to the maximum limit of HD of undead created because you can choose to apply any bonuses granted by feats and abilities anyway you choose, unless otherwise noted.

EDIT: edited my previous wrong answer.

[Coidzor]

Either entirely up to DM adjudication or, going off the previous poster's point, the extra HD counts towards the control cap, but when animating undead you can exceed the creation cap by 1 per creature created. Which is alright because the best way to go about doing things is to animate more undead in one go than you could normally control using Desecrate+Deathbound. This just makes them that much more beefy.

Hmm... What undead retain HD-dependent effects? Zombie Dragons' Breath Weapons' save works off of half its HD for starters.