Little/Big buff for my Ranger

[Leostheros]

Hello I am currently DMing for the first time for a party of 4. The party consists of a cleric, dragon shaman, rogue and ranger. I want to give everyone of them a uniqe ability. They are currently level 9. The Ranger will be the first one to get his ability.

I already have an idea for his ability but I would need some more experienced DMs or Players that can help me to balance it.

First a little story about the ranger. He never uses his magic because one time he endangered the party with a spell, after that incident he swore in character to not use magic again. He liked his animal companion very much, but unfortunately it died when the party was around level 5. He couldn't bear the loss of his beloved pet, so he decided to not get another animal companion. So now I want to give him to summon his dead pet as a ghost to help him in battle. I will scale the duration of the ghost pet with his wisdom score and magic spell slots. How long would be a approbriate duration for this? Any ideas how i should scale it exactly?

I want to give him some commands that he can use with his ghost pet. Please consider that this will be a replacement for his magic spells and animal companion.

Attack: the ghost becomes invincible and distracts the opponent so that he gets a bonus to hit and damage maybe? so I want some opinions of how strong the bonus should be and at which rate it should scale? Also would it be ok to also reduce the AC of the target and how much should this be?

Guard: He tells his pet to guard someone, the pet acts like a meatshield, he rolls some hit dice and maybe adds his con bonus to the life of the creature, when the ghost is defeated he can't summon it in the same fight again. Balancing wise how strong should this HD be and how many HDs should it have?

Howl: Here I am thinking of something like a low level fear effect.

Empower: He can chose a target for his pet to empower them or himself giving them a bonus to hit and damage. Same questions as above: how strong should it scale? And should I scale it with his level or his Wisdom modifier and spell levels?

What are some more things or commands that his ghost pet could do? Would this kind of ability be a fair trade to give up the animal companion and magic spells?

I hope to get some helpful answers from you and that I learn something about balancing :)

[Flickerdart]

Check out the Knight of the Raven class from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. They receive a raven companion that can distract enemies to reduce their AC or prevent them from taking AoOs, force them to provoke with any kind of movement, channel spells cast by the master through itself, and let the master see through its eyes. It's not a frontliner, but it's excellent at supporting them.

Also check out the hexblade's Dark Companion ACF (-2 to saves on anyone next to it) and the paladin's Divine Spirit ACF.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Give him the Hound of Doom spell in Complete Warrior p117-118, but it stays summoned until it dies and he can resummon it once/day at dusk, and it cannot be dispelled. Use his Wis bonus instead of Cha for its AC bonus, and give it all the animal companion benefits that a 'level -3' companion would normally have for his Ranger level. This replaces his animal companion class feature.

Also give him the no-spells Ranger variant in Complete Warrior p13, which gives a few benefits that aren't even as good as being able to cast spells. Make his Hound of Doom companion benefit from all of these as well.

If he's silly enough to swear off magic items, then give him the benefits of Vow of Poverty in the Book of Exalted Deeds p29-31, but without the bonus exalted feats. He would maintain these benefits as long as he doesn't willingly use magic, regardless of alignment or nonmagical equipment. I would also extend this to his Hound of Doom, using his effective Druid level for his animal companion's benefits for the level of VoP benefits it gets if going this route.