I am currently working on a build and have hit a roadblock. My build is basically a pure thief and uses no combat skills nor kills, except for Mercer Frey, and relies heavily on Illusion and Sneak, but recently I have consider using Conjuration, mainly for the raise the dead spells, or Alchemy to make poisons. The reasons I have consider these is because in order to get a house in most, if not all, of the holds in Skyrim, you have to kill a Bandit Chef and buying all the houses in Skyrim is part of my roleplay for the charcater. I learn towards Conjuration more mainly because I can see it as a side effect from the Illusion spells, but I want your guys opinions.

Hmm. I would go conjuration, but for atronachs. But you could always use something like the alchemists shack as your home too.

thanks Curse

I definitely think alchemy is the better route.

what skills?

From what you're describing, I'll second alchemy

If he is a thief I would use alchemy so you can pickpocket poisons.

Planted paralysis poisons act as a clever fail safe when your pickpocket attempt fails.

One skill only: Either Alteration or Restoration.

I haven't decided which would be the better choice.

1) Alteration (Near magic immunity and unlimited concentration casting with the Ultimate Atronach; unfortunately this is broken by the transformation to Vampire Lord, so he'd be stuck with one left handed power - this would likely be Vampiric Grip)

2) Restoration (Necromage would enhance everything; he could use the Advanced Apprentice, Advanced Recovery, and Ring of the Erudite, and Wards for defense; this would leave the left hand free for all powers, plus use of Vampire Lord form. Additionally, he could use the transformation to reset racial powers - for example Orc + Berserker Rage + Ring of the Beast)

Alchemy--Paralysis + Dagger (or knife or fork or shiv) = take-a-nap-and-watch-me-leave! Multiply that by two for the Concentrated Poisons perk, and you have a perfect pacifist for those non-Bandit Chief folk, but still have access to some serious juju for when you need to take out the chiefs.

Alchemy gives you waaaaaaay more control than Conjuration over who actually winds up dying ;D