The Gaming Den

Remove Samurai's Iajutsu, Iajutsu Focus and Iajutsu Mastery. Give Summon Ancestors at 7th level, Summon Ancestors' Wrath at 11th level and Summon Ancestors' Revenge at 15th level.

Summon Ancestors (Su): At 7th level, the Samurai may summon the spirit of an ancestor as a standard action once per day for minutes / level. The ancestor has PC levels equal to the samurai's - 3, has the Undead type and Incorporeal and Dark Minded subtype and an elite array ability score. It is always the same ancestor spirit. It has all the same equipment as the samurai except incorporeal as well and without any enchantments, normal +X enchantments still included. Any equipment normally enchanted (Except for +X enchantments) gain the ghost touch enchantment.

Summon Ancestors' Wrath (Su): At 11th level, the Samurai may summon a different ancestor spirit with the Swordwraith template to it. It is not incorporeal. This spirit has the same number of levels as the original + levels in Swordwraith Paragon equal to the Samurai's wisdom modifier up to 3. This spirit uses the elite array and has the same equipment as the samurai. This spirit uses the same minute / level pool as the original. Summoning both uses up the pool twice as fast.

Summon Ancestors' Revenge (Su): At 15th level, the Samurai may summon another ancestor spirit with the Revenant template. This one is also not incorporeal. This spirt need not be lawful. This spirit has the same number of levels as the original + additional PC levels equal to the Samurai's wisdom modifier up to 3. This spirit uses the elite array and has the same equipment as the samurai. This spirit uses the same minute / level pool as the original and the Swordwraith. Summoning all three uses up the pool thrice as fast.


What needs to be changed to make this more interesting, more or less powerful or broken and generally better?

What are the spirit's ability scores? As a PC? Does it have any equipment? Can you give it equipment (like a ghost-touch weapon) and it will keep it on the next summoning? What happens when it is destroyed?
Can you choose for it to appear incorporeal when it has the option not to, and still retain the Swordwraith Paragon levels? What type of action is it to summon your ancestor?

Let's break it down:
Levels 7-10: You have an incorporeal Bard, Marshall or spellcaster.
It is level 3-5 and therefore cannot participate in combat besides giving minor boosts, flanking and such.
If it's a fighting-man class you can give it a ghost-touch weapon and it can plink away for all that's worth (which is alright if it's a knight, barbarian or rogue but still has trouble hitting anything).
11-14: Your spirit buddy goes from level 8 to 10 along these levels. If instead of useless buffing or spellcasting classes it previously took some kind of fighting-man class, it is nearly as useful as a fighting cohort now (i.e. not much).
Anyway it gains a hefty bit of HP (the Swordwraith template gives it a constitution score) and DR/magic which is utterly pointless. If it's some kind of bard-analog you probably don't bother making it corporeal.
15+: Let's say you have 18 wisdom at the low end (since you've entered the wish economy) - Your ancestor now has 11 PC levels. If it actually took 9 levels of Fighter, your ancestor suddenly gains Foil Action and breaks the game. It is otherwise made of tissue-paper since the Revenant template removes its constitution score (from the Swordwraith template).
You can ambiently afford to deck it in reasonably useful gear even if it appears naked every time now, so that's nice. If it took bard or bard-analog levels, it still supplies some general bonuses (which by now are probably superseded by bonuses from items, but oh well). Since it gains no further level boosts, it fades into utter pointlessness late into the game, but you don't care about that because you've already won D&D by then.

Discussion: The ability is nice as a way to widen the party's repertoire of skills and gain esoteric powers. As much as I loathe to compare anything to Leadership, it's inevitable in this case, and of course comes up worse for it - As a combat ability it has specific exploits depending on the mechanics (see: questions at beginning of post). I assume the mandatory Swordwraith Paragon levels are supposed to give positive incentive to take fighting-man class levels, which they do, but it's a total trap up until level 15, and even then it's good only due to the brokenness of other classes.

Summary: Level/2 is frankly bullshit for anything that you're not allowed to dumpster-dive for, and tying the quasi-cohort's level to your Samurai levels (as opposed to Character Levels) is insulting. Make the ancestor [Character Level -X] level, where X=2,3,4 or so and call it a day. You could even offer a further choice of ancestors at levels 11 and 15, each having its own template if you want to go from Ghost to Swordwraith to Revenant and actually give the player more options.[/b]

I don't really see why you'd want it.

I mean, is Iaijutsu that problematic? This is pretty pathetic in comparison.

How about this for equipment: Same armor and weapons as samurai with all enchantments (Except basic +1 shenanigans) replaced with ghost touch. Then 11 on, just same exact equipment.

* Can the spirit have any combination of PC classes?
* What happens when the spirit is destroyed?
* If the spirit is a spellcaster, does it appear with all spells memorized?
* The last ability in the set is a bit much, as a Samurai with 16 wisdom (trivial to obtain) Can summon a PC of equal level (Which could be a Samurai that summons another Samurai and so on until you have an army of Purple Tentacles, or just be a spellcaster and win the game).
Of course, by that level you're already into crazy high-level shenanningans, but a perfect doubling of character utility seems gamebreaking.
* Having to control 3 extra characters is a bit annoying when they're stupid monsters - it's that much more time consuming when they're actually built as PCs. I'd limit the character to one spirit at a time.
* Having the same equipment as the Samurai is a nice idea for saving time, but it would be unthematic to summon your great aunt Michiko the Sorceress only to have her spend her first action undressing. Well.. that depends on the genre, actually. Not a major issue, though.

All in all, this set of abilities seems quite unrelated to the abilities given up for it. Maybe it would work better as a [Leadership]-ish feat? That would give you stricter appropriateness guidelines.