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For example, Hobgoblins can be Persians, sure... will you represent their embrace of freedom and abolishment of slavery?

Seriously? You have a curious definition of freedom. And a curious definition of abolishment.

OP, here's your real choice:

a) Make a world you like and your players enjoy romping through without obsessing over what everyone else might think.

b) Give up because some perpetually-offended person somewhere will find fault with something you do. And then scream at you and call you names. (When they call you a Nazi, you could mention your modern gaming reinterpretation of our world in which Germans are gnomes.)

Put differently, at the end of your first post, you asked, "Do I just build my vision, social justice warriors be dammed?" Yes, that's exactly what you do. Your world, your game, your hobby, your precious time. How much have you already wasted worrying about this?

And I think it would be hilarious if you went with anti-stereotypes left and right. The beauty-loving, artistic Athenians? Make them the orcs and give orc characters a choice of a +2 racial bonus to Profession (orator), Perform (acting), Knowledge (engineering), or Craft (sculpting).

(OMG, I just stereotyped the Athenians of old!)

From the Core Rulebook:

An empowered, maximized spell gains the separate benefits of each feat: the maximum result plus half the normally rolled result.

I would expect that the empowered cure spells of the 6th level Pathfinder Healing domain would, when combined with the Radiant Servant's Supreme Healing ability, amount to the same sort of situation.

Just my 2 cp - your GM may feel differently.

I played in a group working through this. We were using Pathfinder characters (Core only - this was years ago when Pf was relatively new) and the GM was not scaling anything in the dungeon up to account for the Pf characters being more powerful than same-level 3.5 characters. And there were six of us, sometimes seven. And we barely survived most of the time.

So will it work with Pathfinder? Yes. Will it be easy? No.

DriveThruRPG has cheap floorplans for dozens of castles, palaces, manorhouses, inns, cathedrals, you name it. Many of them are designed to be printed on multiple sheets of paper to work as battle mats.

tl:dr - If Hand of the Apprentice (HotA) comes up against Snatch Arrows (SA), then which "wins"?

One of my PCs is a universalist wizard with the HotA ability. One of my mooks in a recent fight was a monk with the SA feat. The wizard chose to use HotA to throw his bonded object, a masterwork elven curve blade, at the monk. It seemed to me that the monk might try to catch a weapon like that and I don't mind challenging players to solve problems, especially problems that they create by making bad tactical decisions. And then the argument began...

The conditions of Deflect Arrows, an SA prereq, and SA were all met. The monk was aware of the wizard's attack, wasn't flat-footed, and hadn't deflected or caught anything in the round. The wizard's ranged attack roll was high enough to "normally" hit the monk. And, as I said, the monk (me) "chose" to catch the sword.

The player's argument was that the sword instantly returns to his hand. My argument was that the sword returns after hitting the target and the snatch precedes and negates the hit to the target. From the HotA description: "You cause your melee weapon to fly from your grasp and strike a foe before instantly returning to you."

In an effort to keep things from bogging down, I decided to make an attack roll for the monk to actually catch the sword. That probably would have mollified the player if the monk had missed, but he rolled a 19. In the end, I had the monk throw the sword away (and away from the wizard) and keep fighting with his hands because, well, he was a monk. And not proficient with the sword anyway.

So, how does everyone feel about the interaction of HotA and SA? How could I have handled this better? The player feels that I'm trying to gimp his character by depriving him of one of his abilities. I feel like he made a bad decision and the consequences were reasonable. But I also hate having unhappy players.

A wizard specialized in divination is one of the better Core arcane options, IMO. Also, Rise of the Runelords has widely varied challenges, so I second the notion that a wizard with a full spellbook will probably be more successful than a sorcerer. Especially a wizard who can know today what spells will be useful tomorrow. ;-)

Of the Core races, elves make the best wizards, unless you like the human bonus feat. You won't need the bonus skill points with your high Intelligence. And if traits are allowed, then consider Rich Parents. A scroll of a 1st-level spell costs 25 gp and scribing a 1st-level spell into a spellbook costs 10 gp. Buy twenty additional 1st-level spells for 700 gp (over the 3 + Int modifier that you automatically get) and your spellbook will be overflowing at first level.

But your party NEEDS a rogue. As rogues go, I'd suggest a dwarf rogue for three reasons. One, rogues are scouts and scouts benefit greatly from darkvision. Two, dwarves are tough-as-nails when it comes to saving against magic. Three, stonecunning combined with ranks in Perception and the trapfinding ability will result in you finding many traps before they find you. Even if you forget to say, "I search for traps."

Not that I'm trying to spoil anything for you by warning you in advance that you'll see a lot of saves against magic and traps or anything. I would never...

EDIT: Paladin? Good. Battle cleric? Great. Gnome fey sorcerer? Horrible and really not up to RotR's encounters. I'd strongly recommend that your friend reconsider.

Any character I ever had to craft with a less than 25 [points]...

This surprises me because I've never built a character with more than 20 and I seem to do just fine. I suppose it depends upon the campaign.

A few years ago, one of my players built a mid-level rogue that I should have reviewed more carefully before gametime. About an hour into her debut, the party came to a locked door and we realized that she'd failed to put any skill points in Disable Device. And failed to buy thieves' tools.

I say this not to beat a dead horse, but to help the decision-makers at Paizo gauge interest:

PLEASE reprint the pawn collection for the Monster Codex (one of the best sourcebooks ever, IMO).

Everyone who wants a set of the pawns and doesn't have one should post. After a few hundred or a thousand, they'll realize how good an investment or their resources it would be.

She sounds vaguely like a Shadowrun Johnson. I like her already...

Of course, I GMed Shadowrun - I didn't play it!

Do you like your players? DC 10

Do you like arguing with your players? DC 11

Do you dislike your players? DC 15

Do you hate your players? The other side of the pit that appears to be 10' away is actually an illusion that they never thought to test by throwing a pebble at it. The floor of the pit that appears to be 10' below is also an untested illusion. The first character attempting to jump across the pit falls 1,000' to his/her death. In a cavern full of ravenous ghouls. And a rust monster.

Note that I would reserve the last option for players who did something truly awful, like steal one of my dice...

There are lots of great (and many more not-so-great) character builds on these forums, but almost every one relies upon at least two or three sourcebooks. So here's the challenge - post your best Core Rulebook (only!) character builds below. For comparability, we need race, class, and multi-class development, if any, as well as important skill, feat, and equipment choices. And maybe a section on tactics if it's not obvious.

(All that probably sounds a little combat-centric, but that's often the measure used in many campaigns.)

Why? Aside from the fun of it, many newer gamers start with just the core rules. Show them what they can do!