Yeah, I really wish we could see some of the more fun/interesting summons. I really think the team needs to sit down and rethink their approach toward summons in general, particularly given that now you can brew potions for nearly every buff. It's skewing things in one direction quite badly.
I totally agree with this, specifically the part about reworking summons! More on that later. In regards to the Shadow Summons, here are some tweaks that could be applied with the current system that might work well.
-Increase the amount of time the Shadow can be summoned
-Allow the shadow to be summoned alongside other summons. (possible limitation issues)'
These two tweaks would make the shadows wouldn't be a crazy buff, since the summons are killed fairly easily anyways, and are practically harmless to anyone above level 5, instead this would just allow us to roleplay with our summons without the current arbitrary limitations set in place.
As far as summoning in general, I think it'd be really cool to be able to "choose" what you're going to summon, and the tier of that summons, through reagent use.
The system would work as follows, using spiders as an example.
Killing a spider drops their ichor, the ichor is a reagent that can be used in summoning. You simply right click the reagent and use it on yourself to "prepare" it for summoning use.
Now, the next summon spell you use, dissolves the ichor and summons a spider of appropriate level. Summons Monster I might summons a spiderling, where as 3 might summons a Giant Spider and 4 can stay a dire spider. Finally Summon Monster 9 might create a Hive Mother, or something of like. Now we can have themed conjurers, which adds a whole-nother level of complexity and originality to roleplay.
You have you Shadow Conjurers, various Undead summoners, Spider Summoners, Ooze and Gelatinous summoners, perhaps even Dragon summoners.
Finally, if we could control the amount of summons summoned at a time and able to be under player control, I think it'd be really cool to have Mass Summons spells, that create multiple enemies of a mediocre level to deal with, perhaps even a roll, such as "Creates 1d4+1 spiderlings" for Mass Summons I. Just think of the escape possibilites, summoning a small group of spiders to hold off a door while you make your escape. Or just providing fodder for fighters.
I feel as though things that have an in-game stipulation against them, such as summoning and necromancy, should have a
reason for this stipulation, and that reason could be simply that those types of things are a tad bit more powerful, thus harder to control and leave more room for accidents we deem "evil". That would make me more comfortable playing a Necromancer or summoner. It's a very small power bump to help balance out the in-game distaste toward such a thing, similar to guns.