I am reading up on Arcane schools
wood overcomes earth, earth overcomes water, water overcomes fire, fire overcomes metal, and metal overcomes wood.
But I cannot find what Void and Aether oppose, is it each other?
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You pick one of the main four elements. Aether might let you pick one of the other elements like void or wood too.
'Unlike a normal arcane school, the void elemental school requires the wizard to select a single element (air, earth, fire, or water) as his opposition school. '
'the aether elemental school requires the wizard to select a single element as his opposition school (air, earth, fire, or water, from pages 142–143 of the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player’s Guide, for example)'
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BOTH schools have a very limited school list and that will be troublesome when it come to bonus spell selection.
Aether has 4 of 8 spells that mention ether and adds spells with 'ectoplasm'.
Amusingly Void is devoid of Call/Eyes of Void but has Orb of the void. I'd avoid it.
Void is a really good school overall. There's at least one school spell for each level that I'd want to prepare even if I was a universalist - except maybe 4th. (And don't forget you can always prepare a lower level school spell in a school slot. So you can put dispel magic in both the 3rd and 4th level slots.)
Void really shines as a support caster, using your school abilities. Reveal Weakness is just a phenomenal ability. There's no save and it's supernatural so there's no SR either. Void Awareness and Aura of Prescience are very good as well.
Both void and aether have another advantage, one shared with all the elemental schools. They only have one opposition school. For void and aether it is even better, you get to pick the element you think you aren't going to use. And even if you end up regretting your pick take Opposition Research and you have no opposition schools at all.
Also the opposition schools are really small. Having a narrow selection of spells for your bonus spell slot can be annoying - but most of your spell slots can be used for practically any spell.
Edit: 'odds are the character is the only spellcaster' - really Azothath?
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Edit: 'odds are the character is the only spellcaster' - really Azothath?
It is from the same guy that thinks that Greater dispel magic is reactional. It is a matter of playstyle (players and GM both).
In my campaigns, both as a GM and a player, it is a great spell as most high-level opponents have several magical buffs and often they can recast some of them as a quickened spell. Even pure martial characters have magical buffs normally. Potions are magical and can be dispelled.
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Don't forget that Reveal Weakness also lowers the target's AC. So every other member of your party can take advantage of the debuff.
Sure, you're going to have a couple of school spell slots where you memorize something you probably won't use every day. But unless you are a pure blaster in the middle of a war, you probably memorize a lot of spells that you don't use every day.
1. shield
2. see invisibility
3. call the void (NOTE 1)
4. dispel magic (NOTE 2)
5. teleport
6. mage's lucubration (NOTE 3)
7. greater teleport
8. moment of prescience (or mind blank for some campaigns)
9. time stop
NOTE 1: It's pretty universally accepted that tapestry's embrace (a spell name that doesn't exist) was renamed to call the void during development but the void school spell list wasn't updated. It's even in the PFS clarifications document that the void school gets call the void.
NOTE 2: Prepared instead of a 4th level spell.
NOTE 3: Or greater dispel magic. Normally I don't spend a 6th level slot on lucubration, but since it's one of a limited selection, I might take it here. For a utility caster mage's lucubration can be very handy for the occasions you run into multiple obstacles that are overcome by the same spell.