Undead Leadership / Attracting a Cohort

[Chester]

Hello.

Dread Necro will be taking Undead Leadership.

However, the question has arisen: how exactly does one get the cohort? How do I obtain an undead follower without actually creating undead?

[Ionbound]

The Negative Energy Plane recognizes your power, and a powerful undead spontaneously rises to accompany you.

[Randomocity132]

I figured they just kinda wander out from the fields or crypts or what-have-you, drawn to you by some invisible magnetic force.

[Chester]

The Negative Energy Plane recognizes your power, and a powerful undead spontaneously rises to accompany you.


I figured they just kinda wander out from the fields or crypts or what-have-you, drawn to you by some invisible magnetic force.

OK, just clarifying. Some of the group are arguing that I'd have to create the undead myself, and that can't happen until level 8.

:smallbiggrin:

[OldTrees1]

Thrallherd and Death Knight have the "drawn by invisible magnetic force"

Leadership and Undead Leadership are "hey do you want to join my crew? sure!" whether this is on screen or off screen is up to the DM. Animating undead does make it easier to meet undead but it is not required.

[Urpriest]

Offscreen, your character is assumed to interact with characters with similar interests. In the case of Undead Leadership, those characters happen to be undead. You generally don't create the undead yourself, as undead that you create are controlled through other means typically.

[Dalebert]

Offscreen, your character is assumed to interact with characters with similar interests.

That's what I was thinking. Although you could role-play it out if you wanted to or if it helped the game along story-wise.

[NotScaryBats]

Yeah, if you made the undead you wouldn't need a feat; you'd control it utterly already. A cohort is like a friend, not a slave.

[Crake]

Yeah, if you made the undead you wouldn't need a feat; you'd control it utterly already. A cohort is like a friend, not a slave.

That's not really the case, unless he controlled it with rebuke undead (which has quite a limited number of controllable HD) or is simply using animate dead to make mindless zombies and skeletons, the created undead is not actually under his control in any permanent way. All the useful undead, created via create undead and greater create undead, need to either be controlled via rebuking or by the spell control undead, the latter of which is not permanent, so creating undead and then "controlling" them via undead leadership isnt necessarily a bad idea

[negativedreamer]

You probably need to have a reason the undead would wanna follow you, since the need for having "friends" to the lower level undead isnt really there. So to attract zombies, a large supply of fresh elf brains would go a really long way.

If you happen to find a random undead, wouldnt their original creator still be the one controlling them by the initial commands? If the said creator dies, i would think the command is still followed since skeletons would guard an area for centuries.

Rebuke may help in the short term, but does it/can cancel the long term stuff? Rules state it lasts 10 rounds.

[Chester]

If you happen to find a random undead, wouldnt their original creator still be the one controlling them by the initial commands?

Some undead don't have creators who control them.

Look at ghouls and ghasts, for instance. You get bit, you die from ghoul fever, you come back as a ghoul or ghast. Who controls you?

[CIDE]

Some undead don't have creators who control them.

Look at ghouls and ghasts, for instance. You get bit, you die from ghoul fever, you come back as a ghoul or ghast. Who controls you?

What came first? The ghoul or the fever?

[OldTrees1]

What came first? The ghoul or the fever?

The ghoul. Several forms of intellegent undead spontaneously animate from people that died in specific thematic manners. Famines can cause Ghouls.