Oh comon, that was trolling. If real worl logic was being used, dozens of spells would kill the party when they were cast just from AoE backlash.
Just one of the many dangers of being a caster. Lol.
It would really hose pretty much every caster who wears a pair of gloves for any reason. There goes a pretty nifty magic item slot.
Or any magus, eldritch knight, bard, skald, cleric, bloodrager or some ranger/paladins since fullplate isn't the only armor that conceivably has gloves.
All of your ideas would work out fine. The shadow dancer might run into some issues, though.
Your group doesn't have anything covering the arcane or int-based skills it seems. A witch would be useful since they get heal spells and buff/debuffs which compliments the party while also being thematically fitting with Carrion Crown. You can also build them pretty sturdy and melee-capable if you're into Orcs at all.
An archeologist bard might suit the party (and book 3). There's a good reason for one to be in those parts, and you get trapfinding which the party lacks.
An alchemist would be quite interesting. Carrion Crown has alchemical elements sprinkled through it. If you're not into bombing, there's a variant that get sneak attack instead of bombs. This might be a good alternative to shadow dancer as the shadow companion tends to be useless at time (and later on) since undead are immune to him.
A second cleric can be very useful, especially of Pharasma.
Archer Paladins just found their perfect Dip class.
Two levels gets them some much-needed melee ability using their prime stat, and the ability to add their Charisma to their saves again.
Not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly interesting.
Or... They could just grab weapon finesse and not lose any Paladin level. Adding the ability to add Cha to will saves 2 or 3 times is not only completely unnecessary for a class with good will saves and Divine Grace, but also a bad deal, as it delays the Paladin's save progression, since SBs have slow will save progression.
Actually for a 3 level dip a dex paladin appears to gain more than he loses, particularly after 5th or 8th level. The free 5' movement is particularly nice.
Given how much they are delaying their Paladin progression, I don't think it's a very good deal.
I'd much rather get my immunities, Smite Evil and caster levels ASAP instead of delaying them to get +3 precision damage and a limited buff to my already amazing saves. Getting Weapon Finesse and buying an Agile weapons is a much better deal, IMHO.
It's an okay dip, but nothing to write home about...
I posted a breakdown, but the saves and weapon finesse are a small part of the whole package. The utility, mobility, AC, saves, and more are overall stronger than some LOH and divine bond progression - particularly after 8th when you won't be gaining more immunities and the smite damage is negligible (and offset by the precision damage mostly).
Archer Paladins just found their perfect Dip class.
Two levels gets them some much-needed melee ability using their prime stat, and the ability to add their Charisma to their saves again.
Not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly interesting.
Or... They could just grab weapon finesse and not lose any Paladin level. Adding the ability to add Cha to will saves 2 or 3 times is not only completely unnecessary for a class with good will saves and Divine Grace, but also a bad deal, as it delays the Paladin's save progression, since SBs have slow will save progression.
Actually for a 3 level dip a dex paladin appears to gain more than he loses, particularly after 5th or 8th level. The free 5' movement is particularly nice.
This class seems extremely front loaded. It would be interesting when combined with an paladin - especially an archer paladin. The charisma synergy (and dex if archer-based) looks pretty strong.
A Paladin 8 who takes 3 levels of Swashbuckler instead of 3 levels of paladin (level 11)
Loss:
~3 hit points
Aura of Justice
Mercy (Curse/staggered/nauseated/frightened)
Smite 1/day
Divine Bond 1/day
-If weapon is chosen, max bonus is +2 instead of +3.
1 third level spell
1 second level spell
LOH 1/day and 1d6
3 smite damage
Gain:
6 skill points (+class skills)
Weapon Finesse
Panache (charisma synergy)
Dodging Panache (charisma to AC, stacks with smite, works with Grace spell)
Kip-Up
Menacing Sword-play (demoralize on melee hit)
Precise Strike (3 damage, effectively replacing lost smite damage if melee)
Swashbuckler Initiative (+2 initiative)
Charmed Life 3/day (stacks with Divine Grace)
+2 reflex
Nimble+1 (+1 AC)
By RAW, you can use a spiked gauntlet, composite longbow, and buckler all with no penalty.
1. Sounds like bard would fit. You had access to the noble's libraries (bardic knowledge). They bought you because you had good pitch and trained you to sing for their amusement.
2. Inquisitor fits well. Previous concept and this could be tied together for a retributive bard.
That werewolf encounter might not challenge the group except if the rogue if he can sneak behind the group and flank with the dire wolves. The fighter, rogue, and alchemist are going to make a blockaid long enough for the paladin and witch to shut two of the werewolves down. Have you considered maybe adding an Oracle or Witch of Jezelda? That could replace the Ranger for only 1 BaB loss and 1 feat loss if you don't want another werewolf thrown in, but the paladin and witch are probably going to destroy the bow-wielding werewolf right off the bat if he's not protected and there's no other ranged dangers.
(if you're worried about too many werewolves, make the ranger a human thrall they allow to live in order to help trick huntsmen and travelers into their traps).
If you want to make the fight even tougher, there's two things you can include. The first would be in-combat traps. Make terrain obstances (fences, cages, camp stuff) and have pit traps or other simple traps set up. Combat would probably count as unfavorable conditions (higher perception DC) making them unlikely for low perception characters to notice. These werewolves sound like a nasty bunch so they'd probably let one of the captives "escape" now and then and laugh as he was chased by a dire wolf into a trap. You could also have some triggerable by the ranger werewolf shooting specific spots (like he shoots a frayed rope holding a drum of oil, now some of the party is covered in oil and grease conditions). You could also consider feeding them knowledge that they'll kill the kidnapped people if you do walk in brazenly so the party is forced to split. That would let the whip fighter reach the ranged line (paladin, cleric, witch) easier.
The dire wolves are thematically nice, but won't do much. Consider making them diseased? Rabies is kind of appropriate with Con and Wis damage.
Another idea is to simply release the captives who have been driven mad and watch them attack or run over the party. Moral canundrum that eats up actions! You could also draw on the shared history between werewolves and wendigos (cannibalism) by maybe give them a toned down version of wendigo disease, but that may be a bit evil.
Note: This could also be a nice way to reward the party for trying to be stealthy. If they proceed with caution, the stealthy party members can disable some traps or free people.
It doesn't sound like a player issue as much as a character(s) issue. A paladin, by default, is pretty strong in carrion crown. Nothing sounds out of the ordinary for a standard paladin. A paladin archer is also really MAD so low int/wis is fairly expected in point buy(and most guides on this website suggest 7 int 7 wis it seems). I don't really think stats can be considered "cheesed" in a point buy, anyway. If others haven't optimized their characters, then a naturally strong-for-the-campaign class is going to shine. The fact that the player messaged you makes it sound like he wants the game to be balanced and is looking out for everyone to be having fun.
That said, definitely don't be afraid to throw some punches! Every character has weaknessses to exploit! Wind wall the archer, grease the heavy armored fighter, silence the casters, glitterdust the rogue, mwahaha!
I know you don't want to be throwing wind wall spells and tower shields, but fog, snow storms (it's winter time around this point in the AP), and trees (cover) are naturally occurring and serve similar purposes much like how difficult terrain, cliffs, etc hurt melee. Your post history indicates this is a large group, and action economy becomes exponentially more important as levels increase. 6 PCs will often wreck any small group of enemies so obstacles and multi-encounter days become more important to use to eat up those extra actions and abilities.
A paladin doing that much damage on a crit doesn't seem out of place if he's smiting, a couple buffs, and all four attacks hit (assuming rapid shot and multishot). Your average +1 composite (+2) longbow will be doing 1d8+15 with smite, PBS, and deadly aim. That's 6d8+90 before any party buffs (112.5 average) if he crit. Comparatively, an 18 strength human barbarian with power attack could be doing 1d12+17 per hit (70.5 on a crit) and would come out to an average 94 damage if the second attack hit. That's not all that far off from the paladin who can only do it against evil creatures (which is most of this AP).
An archer can be strong, but their damage is very spread out, and they're not going to fair well against damage reduction when they can't smite. The abberant promethean encounter last module probably shut down the paladin archer character entirely.
It sounds like part of the problem is this encounter encouraged the players to "nova" abilities. If there's 20 werewolves out there, they probably wanted to take down those three as fast as possible and run. Paladins generally get 3 smites at level 7, and to do that kind of damage he had to use two. Also the paladin was able stand still and full attack. Basically, everything was in the paladin's favor - evil enemies, able to full attack freely, probably had party buffs, didn't have to stop to heal someone, etc. Also the dice aligned perfectly for him with crits.
If archers are becoming a problem, maybe throw in some anti-archer tactics like spring attacking back behind cover, wall spells (wind wall will auto-win against any archer), your own archers, miss chance (dim light is technically a miss chance for anyone without darkvision and allows creatures to re-stealth for sneak attacks, smoke sticks, etc), grappling, tripping (can't fire longbows prone), reach, etc.
