I don't think this is a good idea.
Although summoners are exceedingly annoying, they have been nerfed to a somewhat manageable form in the recent prereleases.
I think in case of summons, a rare equilibrium has been achieved, between reasonable challenge/difficulty and annoyance.

Sometimes I'm counting on summons remaining out there for a long time in order to benefit from item drops.
Lich kings and emperors summoning dragons or wyrms of any kind is both a challenge and a chance.
I'd hate to see them go before I had the time to kill them and get the items they drop.
Summons can also pick up existing items and I think making it work with them disappearing after a while when the summoner is killed, would be a difficult thing to do.
I'd hate to see a panicking swordsman pick up stuff like earth orb I left on a pile and disappearing with it.

If anything, summons could be made more thematic - balors should summon only chaos-related beings like chaos warlords, annihilators, mutants, wmopc etc.
Master liches already summon only undead creatures; lich kings and emps should summon high end undead creatures, even other summoners - master liches, skele kings, ghost kings, vampires, reventants etc. instead of a random bunch of unrelated monsters.

Blas, sometimes I don't know if you want this game to be better or not. You really can't see the strategic value of allowing summoner's death to dispel their summons? The game stops being about "hold down attack to mow through enemies" and now at least involves prioritizing targets. It's a richer, more strategic way of approaching combat. You seem to feel like the situation is "just annoying enough" right now, when it could not be annoying at all.

What makes you think the monsters are going to keep the items they pick up with this change any more than before? Like I said, there is already a death function that handles dumping the monster inventory on the ground when they die. You would be calling an already extant death function from the death function of the summoner. Arguably you shouldn't even change the experience given to the pc since they are directly responsible for the death of the monsters.

I don't like idea either.Some summonners are designed to be weak but to summon powerful creatures. That would be a huge nerf to them. And have you thought what this change wilould do to awesome blink dogs (which rely mostly on summonning and staying alive this way)?..

I see only a new way to get easy XP here. If someone summons bunch of balor you would level up from nothing.

I guess if you can't see any potential for improvement in this situation, you deserve what you are getting now.

And by pointing out the blink dog situation, you picked perhaps the only case where this RFE wouldn't work well. If we always look for the rare exceptions where new ideas wouldn't work, we'll never see them implemented. But, maybe for you that is the goal: never to have anything change.

If we can't see the limitations of these kinds of mechanics, this game is never going to actually go anywhere. But a least it will be familiar, I suppose.

BTW, I wouldn't include blink dogs or worms or similar creatures in this RFE because they clone, rather than summoning.

I like the idea in theory - except:
1) I think this biases the game more towards spell casters, who tend to be better at nuking down individual targets. Spell casters are already pretty strong.
2) Summoners would need some tweaking individually to stay balanced (stronger themselves, or at least more HP potentially)

So I'm not voting yet, either way.

I do not see any strategic benefit in this change unless you are caster/mindcrafter. In most cases you will still bash whatever monster is near until the summoner will step in. And casters are already considered too powerful, no need to buff them. It would also be a huge nerf to Yulgash.

Blink dogs clearly summon (the message indicates that) other blink dogs, while worms, jellies and bugs multiply.
I have always considered summons to be independent beings once summoned: there are situations when the summoner steps on an alarm trap and promptly gets attacked by his own summons.
I remember necromancers getting paralyzed by their own ghuls and spiders poisoning elven priests/princelings to death.
Great red wyrms obliterating their summoners, lich kings, and other summons.
They drop items, corpses, give exp. They interact with the world, activate traps, open doors.
With that in mind I see absolutely no justification for them dying when their summoner does.

To answer your doubts gr3ybird: yes, I want this game to be better.
I just disagree on how to do this best. In this particular case I don't think proposed changes do the job.
I mentioned summoners being annoying but that is true for many other elements of the game, yet I take it all in stride and don't complain.
On the other hand, summoners used to be extremely annoying by summoning endless hordes of monsters, sometimes 5-6 turns in a row.
That was excessive and when this feature was toned down, I felt the change was fair and I had no more complaints.
I seem to recall a lot of people sharing my thoughts on this.

Improving the game in my opinion has less to do with changing existing mechanics and more with adding greater randomity.
So, more quests (mutually exclusive as well), more items (notably artifacts), perhaps more skills.
I'd like to see more logical changes in the game, some of which might make adom easier, but respective RFEs are usually downvoted to oblivion or "balance" is quoted as the priority.

Hey, I don't like this change not because I got used to existing behavior. I don't like it because summons independant from summoner from my point of view is better than summons dying with summoner, no matter what is currently implemented.

I want a lot of changes in this game and some of them were posted by me. I like changes that add improvement to the game from balance, creativity, detail, realism (sometimes), gameplay, interface, impression or anything else. I like changes that make game less annoying, changes that make grinding (as well as other common rpg problems) not necessary... But I don't see such potential in this particular RFE.

Hey, sorry about the tone of my reply. I was frustrated about something else unrelated to this RFE. Ixi, you have made a lot of suggestions that I really like, and I respect your opinion.

I realize that if this isn't what the community wants than it shouldn't be implemented.