Undead Leadership + Necrocarnum Zombie Followers?

[Yogibear41]

Anyone have any thoughts on picking up Necrocarnum Zombies with the undead leadership feat instead of regular zombies? Raw legal? Overpower? Acceptable?
Underpowered because you could have Necropolitan wizard followers instead?

[OldTrees1]

RAW legal?: No
Only undead with an ECL or listed on the chart (thus gaining an effective follower level) can be used.

Overpowered? Acceptable?: Depends
They have better DR (magic and slashing rather than just slashing) and slightly better stats (+2 Str, +6 Dex, +2X initiative, +10X speed, +X AC, +X saves). So they are strictly stronger. Whether that is small enough to be considered a rounding error or if it is large enough to be an issue depends on the power level of everything else being used.

Underpowered compared to Necropolitian?: Yes
A Necropolitian Fighter tends to be stronger than a Necropolitian Zombie.

[KillianHawkeye]

Necrocarnum zombies are entirely temporary creatures who exist only to serve the necrocarnates who create them, so no they aren't proper followers.

You could maybe use regular Leadership to get a bunch of low-level evil Incarnates and have them all bind for necrocarnum circlets, but their zombies will be weak and it's probably not what you want. Or I guess you could use Undead Leadership and get a bunch of undead Incarnates who all took the Undead Meldshaping feat, but you're really asking for an awful lot of generosity from your DM at this point.

[Yogibear41]

Necrocarnum zombies are entirely temporary creatures who exist only to serve the necrocarnates who create them, so no they aren't proper followers.


This isn't true, they can arise spontaneously from Necrocarnum bogs for instance.

Much the same way that not every zombie or skeleton in a game was created by a spell, neither do Necrocarnum zombies have to be created by an Incarnate.


RAW legal?: No
Only undead with an ECL or listed on the chart (thus gaining an effective follower level) can be used.


The Libris Mortis book has a chart for converting "zombies" of a certain HD into an effective level follower, while granted it probably refers to normal plain jane zombies, Necrocarnum Zombies are infact Zombies of a different variation. Not that I necessarily argue with your interpretation, im just playing devil's advocate.

The incarnum book also lists Murthien the soul Render as leading a "legion" of necrocarnum zombies when attacking the Bastion of Unborn Souls, so maybe he had the undead leadership feat, as I don't think it would be possible even for an epic level Neocarnate to create that many temporary zombies.

[OldTrees1]

The Libris Mortis book has a chart for converting "zombies" of a certain HD into an effective level follower, while granted it probably refers to normal plain jane zombies, Necrocarnum Zombies are infact Zombies of a different variation. Not that I necessarily argue with your interpretation, im just playing devil's advocate.

The incarnum book also lists Murthien the soul Render as leading a "legion" of necrocarnum zombies when attacking the Bastion of Unborn Souls, so maybe he had the undead leadership feat, as I don't think it would be possible even for an epic level Neocarnate to create that many temporary zombies.

That Devil's Advocate position is Begging the Question. It chooses Necrocarnum Zombies are allowed, then ignores the game defined term Zombie (Necrocarnum Zombies are not Zombies) in favor of the English language definition of zombie, then it concludes that Necrocarnum Zombies are allowed if the definition they chose is used.


RE Murthien:
"You can have only one necrocarnum zombie animated at any given time"
"At 13th level, you can have up to two necrocarnum zombies animated simultaneousl"

A Legion is about 5000. Clearly Murthien was using some method measured in thousands on a legion of Necrocarnum Bog spawned Necrocarnum Zombies. This neatly rules out Undead Leadership about as well as we can trust the editor's editing.