Getting Simulacrum with banned illusion

[Crake]

So I have a player who wants to become an effigy master, and focus on crafting constructs. So far he's level 3 with Apprentice (Craftsman) and Extraordinary Craftsman to signficantly reduce the costs so far, but I missed the fact that effigy master requires Simulacrum, an illusion spell, which is one of his banned schools.

Note that the prestige class simply requires it on your class list, even if you can't cast it, but I believe that banning a school effectively removes it from your class list, correct? I was thinking having him pick up arcane disciple for the Envy domain, which has it as an 8th level spell, but that would delay him getting the craft construct feat until level 9, which is a fair while down the track.

Or should I maybe just remove simulacrum as one of the requirements for the class, as it seems like a bit of a random requirement.

[Firest Kathon]

Having Illusion as a banned spell does not seem to be a problem:

Must have the simulacrum spell on a class spell list, whether or not the character is able to cast it.
Choosing banned schools does not remove them from your class spell list, you just cannot cast them:

Spells of the prohibited school or schools are not available to the wizard, and she can’t even cast such spells from scrolls or fire them from wands.
Since they do not need to cast the spell to create the effigy, this should be fine.

[Zaq]

Sounds like you're the GM, am I right? If that's the case, it seems to me like you were fine with him taking Effigy Master before you realized Simulacrum was a requirement, so I don't think it would really be inappropriate to let him still take Effigy Master even now that you know about Simulacrum. Just use your GM powers to declare that he's good for the class.

As Firest pointed out, there's no specific language that removes a banned school from your "class list," so this might even be a moot point.

If you're not the GM and the GM isn't going to accept Firest's argument, he can look at Spell Reprieve (Lost Empires of Faerun, pg. 9), which specifically lets a Wizard prepare and cast one specific Wizard spell from their banned school. The catch is that they have to be a high enough level to cast the spell normally, and you indicated that he's already low on feats, so that's an ugly workaround at best; it would be better to try to convince the GM (whether that's you or whether that's someone else) to accept Firest's argument.

[Godskook]

Let the player research a conjuration version of the spell? Or transmutation? Or go on a quest to change a banned school magically?

And by research, I mean discover that there's such a spell hidden deep in some dungeon somewhere(or insert plot hook X here).

You're the DM, it sounds like, so flexing the rules is within your power. I'd just make sure that you gate all PC-benefiting decisions of that nature behind PC effort.

(Put simply, breaking the rules in this case probably won't break your game ~more~ than if the player had picked the right banned schools, so let him have it, but make him work for it).