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Why don't you use one of the NPCs to be the 4th ? Shalelu would proove useful in this group.
We just had a player drop out and are now down to 3 PCs.
They are 4th level and are about to start chapter 2.
We have a half-orc two-handed fighter, a dwarven cleric who specialises in crafting and a dwarven domain druid who specialises in summoning.
The player who plays the half-orc fighter is planning on taking the leadership feat at 7th level and is going to take a fighter as his cohort but until then do you think with only 3 characters they will be able to complete this part of the AP or should I give them some extra resources or maybe reduce the difficulty of some of the encounters?
I ran this AP for a party of three a while back. They did fine with just 3 players ( Cleric, Barbarian, and Rogue) plus an NPC tag-along (Sorcerer). I informed them ahead of time that I wasn't adjusting anything, and they played smart.
Still, you have plenty of options:
Noir le Lotus has a great idea in having Shalelu help out.
Depending on what happened in Thistletop with your group, Orik might be an option.
It's been discussed elsewhere, but you might consider granting Leadership as a free feat. Linky.
Hope this helps!
If the crafting Cleric is not afraid to mix it up in melee (and the Druid's summoned creatures are useful in combat), then I would suggest that the fourth character (whether a real NPC or a Leadership NPC) be an arcane caster. This AP almost requires a 9-level arcane caster, ideally a Wizard (then all those spellbooks in the loot list would be put to good use before being sold off for extra cash).
While a Wizard would be ideal from a flavour/RP and loot point of view, a Sorcerer is much easier to run as a player's secondary character. Another alternative: Arcanist from the ACG (can still gain benefits from the spellbooks).
Looking the pc class list, I will suggest the group has three potential gaps: arcane casting, skill monkey (rogue/bard) and perhaps a stretch, ranged attacks. You can build a group that has a couple of those holes but all three might be too much.
The arcane and skill monkey gaps may have a some hidden impacts - those classes are typically the best at connecting the group to the AP out of combat with knowledge checks, and perception checks - finding secret doors, opening locks, disabling traps. Not having the class skill bonus and volume of skill points to apply may hinder your group in figuring out what's going on, who's who, why is this here, etc. questions.
Also, the AP assumes 4 pc's, going with three hits the group in the "action economy." The AP has some "boss" fights where the enemy "solo's" the group. The boss is higher level than the group and how the AP compensates is through higher number of actions for the pc's. And Leadership is not a great solution here. 1) it's 3 levels away and 2) any cohort will have an action, but he/she will be at best 2 levels lower than the party and likely limited in effectiveness.
I would recommend adding an arcane caster as a GM NPC. Or perhaps multiclass arcane/rogue to get access to the skills, etc. but keep the NPC from having the top end powers that might take attention from the pc's.
I see I was too terse in my answer. I used the boss fights more as an example than as the singular place 3 pc's could have trouble. Though it is the hardest spot to compensate for - you can't reduce the number of opponents - it's already down to one. Dumbing down their tactics is an option but then you run the risk of diminishing the challenge and any satisfaction from the victory. I don't know that I would point to any particular fight that calls for 4 pc's - though I would observe the end of Book 2 has a fight that is notorious for killing pc's. Check the obit thread.
This isn't an exact science - your group might be just fine, if they make good decisions, effectively leverage allies, companions, cohorts and summoned creatures and don't have a run of bad luck - another challenge with fewer pc's: a string of bad d20 rolls is even more impactful. Miss a couple attacks, fail a couple saves and suddenly a run-of-the-mill combat becomes a TPK in the making.
One option would be to have the players run the NPC, at least during combats. They could take turns or make decisions collectively, etc. One other advantage: if one of your pc's is incapacitated (held, unconscious, dead) they can run the NPC until the situation is resolved instead of just sitting there doing nothing.
Not saying that adding an NPC is the obvious or even required solution, just the most common for your situation and the one with the best in-game benefits (at a cost of additional GM and player overhead.)
I wanted to avoid having to run an NPC in the party for 2 reasons. I feel it takes away from the PCs actions and the extra work of running an NPC in the party (especially at high levels).
Have you considered letting a player run/manage the NPC? Or letting the players round-robin the NPC? I've done this before to some success.
Edit: Missed the fact that Latrecis mentioned this as well.
I've been running this AP with three PCs (sorcerer, ranger, monk) from the start (we've just started chapter 5). They've done pretty well, though at several points they have had extra help: a cohort from the Leadership feat, an extra PC here and there where other players have joined the group temporarily, and the ranger's animal companion.
I've found that the party, whether on their own or with the extras mentioned above, have coped perfectly fine with the encounters as written. I've even had to beef up some of the major encounters to make them suitably challenging.
That being said, an NPC or just a tough animal companion can certainly help put the odds back in the players' favour when things get ugly.