Shadow craft Mage in pathfinder?

[darqueseid]

Which schools should a focused specialist illusionist drop if the goal is to be a shadow craft Mage?

My dm has allowed a 6th level entry through earth spell heighten etc, and only wants to use the spells in the pathfinder books. 

Right now I'm thinking evocation, conjuration, and necromancy
Evocation is a given, I can mimic it all
Necromancy because my character is in a superstitious sort of world and I don't want to get burned

I'm on the fence about conjuration, Im only giving up part of the school if I ban it, but what a part, I lose teleportation, including planar travel, and binding as far as I can tell, some of the most powerful parts of that school.  Should I choose something else?

Abjuration/enchantment were the other schools on the chopping block, but I felt like losing only part of conjuration was better than losing all of any other school.  Abjuration has dispel magic, and enchantment has a lotta save/lose spells...

Also this is my first pathfinder game and I don't know all the spells, am I giving up too much to drop conjuration(or ench/abjur)in a pathfinder setting? 

[littha]

I would drop Enchantment, it quickly loses value at higher levels. Conjuration just gets better.

[Aradu]

Immunity to mind affecting is a lot rarer in Pathfinder, though. Even mind blank only gives a +8 resistance to saves,  only a+3 extra over a cloak, with persistent spell (and usually a racial +2 to casting stat) allowing a save is less of an issue in general, and some of the other win spells were nerfed, so enchantment is a lot better in comparison than in 3.5.

Since in pathfinder you don't lose access to banned schools completely (just costs double slots) banning conjuration isn't that much of an issue either, even if you sometimes need to prepare several teleports you probably still come out ahead spellslot wise from being a focused specialist, and could also get a staff will teleport on it and recharge it every day. The same would go for abjuration, though, just compare how many dispels and teleports you expect to prepare each day and pick the school less expensive in slots.

[littha]

Immunity to mind affecting is a lot rarer in Pathfinder, though. Even mind blank only gives a +8 resistance to saves,  only a+3 extra over a cloak, with persistent spell (and usually a racial +2 to casting stat) allowing a save is less of an issue in general, and some of the other win spells were nerfed, so enchantment is a lot better in comparison than in 3.5.

This is a standard pathfinder claim and simply isn't true, immunity to mind affecting is harder for players to get sure but you will still end up fighting a lot of undead or constructs...

[veekie]

^^
When it does work though, Enchantment gets you more bang when it does work. Its generally healthy to keep a few enchantments prepared to completely trivialize non-mindless encounters.
What you want to bar is probably just schools with spells you'd only use once or twice per day across all levels. Come to think of it Abjuration could do just as well.

[darqueseid]

Thanks for the advice!

Well, I sortof feel like I have to keep abjuration because there are no other casters in the group (no cleric/druid or bard)  and none of the other characters can do any kind of dispel magic. 

Veekie I hear what your saying about conjuration, but remember that I will be able to mimic all the conjuration(summoning) and conjuration(creation) effects as a shadowcraft mage.  I'm only losing the bindings and the teleportation effects really.  I agree thats some powerful stuff to give up, but are they worth the entire enchantment school?  I don't know, because I've never played high-level pathfinder before.   Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated.

Also I didn't know about the 2 slots per spell for prohibited schools... thats good to know, I'm not even sure my DM is running it that way, thanks!   

[veekie]

Make sure of that then, because of the 2 slots thing, its acceptable losses if you pick schools to bar which you only use a few spells out of, since you still can use those spells.