Mounts as Cohorts (formerly: Azurin Paladin's Soulborn Mount)

[Corwin of Amber]

I want to mess with incarnum for a bit and I'm going to play an Azuran Paladin that will (ask my DM to be allowed to) use the Channel Incarnum ability from the Azurin Cleric sub level in place of the normal Turn Undead at level 4, along with grabbing some incarnum feats as part of the build. I would also like to extend the incarnum-ness to my mount as well. This thread is going focus on my mount, as the rules regarding it confuse me.





Here's what I need:

• I know there is a blurb on DMG p200 that allows a combination of Leadership and Special Mount.
• It says the mount gets a +2 ECL, I understand that this counts for leadership, but does it have an effect on the mount's progression based on Paladin level (similar to more powerful Druid animal companions)?
• Would the Heavy Warhorse mount of a level 12 Paladin have an ECL of 12 while trying to do this? (4 RHD, +6 bonus HD, +2 Cohort LA) Or would it be ECL 6? ( 4RHD, +2 Cohort LA)

I don't want to be a charger, I want this to be closer to a Ranger/Animal Companion in terms of fighting together. Any advice or explaination of how this works would be great.

 

[Corwin of Amber]

I'm just changing the name to more accurately reflect the information I wish to know.

I also had a thought: Do the class HD simply replace the bonus HD or are those added on as well?

This thread seems to imply that they get added on top of the normal class HD when it mentions 1 creature with 80HP vs 2 with 40HP.

 

[Corwin of Amber]

A veteren D&D player friend of mine has suggested that the HD are managed separately in terms of gaining feats. What I would like to know is, assuming that you are playing a monstrous class, do yout previous HD count for gaining feats or do you gain them based on new HD?

For example: An Ogre (MMI 199) has a +2 LA and 4 RHD, he gains 2 feats from his monstrous HD. The 4th level Ogre Barbarian gets 3 feats from 4 RHD + 4 HD worth of Barbarian. If he were to gain an additonal RHD, would it count as his 9th level or his 5th level, being put before the Class HD?

Also, when gaining Racial HD after you've gained Class HD, are you restricted to monstrous feats with those levels?