Sycophant's page

It can work splendidly, but does require the GM and players to be aware of it.

The important thing is to make sure everyone still has their moments in the spotlight and character stories/arcs woven into the fabric of the story.
Note that just because a character may be the rightful ruler of a country doesn't give them immediate advantages over the others. Restoring the kingdom is the long term goal at the end of the campaign, after all, so just because one of the players is the "lost heir" doesn't innately give them special advantages.

My own experience in a year-long campaign as the player of the "lost heir" restoring her kingdom, whose birthright had been usurped, was to play as a full support character. Started as a Bard (Sandman), but ended up reclassing into a Cleric (Evangelist) after the party's close brush with the divine. While she certainly had good social skills, there was a lot of disguising and relying on the others to do investigating whenever the party was in towns controlled by the usurpers. The other party members were a former general of the court, now in exile after the coup (elf magus), a martial artist from the southern tribes who while continuing his mastery decided to help in exchange for the party having saved him from slavers (half-orc monk), the captain of the royal yacht on which the general had fled with the young heir during the coup (half-elf gunslinger) , and a prodigious young spy who had trained in tutelage under the spymaster of the court (human ninja).
My character focused on team-support in buffing/inspire courage (oratory, which made for great royalty themed speeches later). It is important, I think, to establish that the lost heir can't do everything alone, she needs to trust and rely on her friends/companions. While there is no need to go completely into a "damsel in distress" mode, it may be less "in your face" to have the party support role be filled by the lost heir character, as opposed to the front liner or master of arcane arts. It lets you act as more of...

Lots and lots of this!

In the end you are going to know your players better than anyone here. So if you do wind up with a primary character that is more powerful stat wise just make sure you incorporate the players around him/her. Also don't forget that politics doesn't care how many points you have on your sheet. So it's highly likely that said heir would get pulled into political situations that they couldn't touch and would need the others to help him/her through. It sounds like you already had some future thoughts about the game you're going to run by your comments about but maybe some of these will help too:

Sokka: In Avatar the Last Airbender he was the lowest on the totem pole as far as overall power but he still played a vital role to 'Team Avatar' due to his quick wits (comedy, planning, and later his cunning). Sure it wasn't his destiny to save the world line Aang, but his secondary contributions played a big part in the story. Especially in helping to find ways to thwart the Fire Nations technology.

Justice League: In the episode 'The Greatest Story Never Told' Booster Gold was constantly complaining about being left behind. He was desperate to make a difference but for seemingly all the wrong reasons. But as the main heroes of the story congregate to battle it out with a major foe, Booster Gold continues to dwell on his bruised ego. It doesn't help that people continue to confuse him with Green Lantern. But when an attractive scientist catches his eye pleading for help (which inadvertently placates his desire to be noticed) he's hooked. He realizes he's woefully inept to handle the problem alone but he's able to partner up with the scientist to stop the black hole disaster forming. And in that moment it clicks. No he's not in front of a camera and people aren't treating him like the second coming of Superman. But in that moment he matters and he has to step up and be the hero. And in the end he does. And his actions matter to those people he saved, finding satisfaction in that.

Asami: Going back to the Avatar series, in The Legend of Korra, once again we see a super powerful 'heir'/destiny type figure but Asami fits in well for a number of reasons. Asami's backstory, while initially a love interest of Mako, her story becomes intertwined with Korra's when it is found out that her father supported the major villain for the first story arc. Smart, savvy, with contacts and much needed resources, Asami isn't the main focus of the story but she becomes a pivotal one. And it doesn't hurt that her backstory ties well to Korra's and becomes kind of a long running redemption story (even if not explicitly stated at times). In the final series she winds up becoming the love interest of the main character and a crutch for Korra to lean on as she battles her own inner demons.

So you see there are plenty of ways to work with what you have and give the non 'heir to the throne' characters enough meat and potatoes to make them feel they matter.

Thank you all for chiming in. To address a couple of points raised:

1) PFS isn't feasible out here currently due to distance, time, and travel. The closest PFS game right now is about a half hour away and when things are tight and you don't know any of them, running games out of your own home is probably for the best for now. I tend to do a lot of my own research anyways for games that I've run so I'm not opposed to doing it here either.

2) I understand the concern over rewarding XP but it's something I tend to do in all of my games. But I do appreciate the concern and suggestions

3) Thank you for the suggestions on what to watch for mechanics-wise (like the classes rkotitan suggested and the skills Mark mentioned). I am limiting what books they can draw from just like I do in any game I have that has a fairly massive library of content. I'm also going to keep it simple storyline wise. I have some content I have created and planned to have in the background but the first series is going to start off with Master of the Fallen Fortress and then on to Rise of the Rune Lords both scaled up some depending on what levels we have and how many players.

I've also given myself ample prep time as this game isn't starting until the beginning of December.

I'm mostly looking for cheesy, broken, beginning character types, or rules/mechanics that cause some concern and/or sometimes subject to abuse.

Growing up I was a big original D&D, AD&D 1e and 2e fan. Played in Grayhawk a lot which had a lot to like as far as original modules go and played in Forgotten Realms when it first came out (and a little bit of Dragonlance).

FR became my mainstay when I played fantasy games and looking back I think FR started to get on a similar page as PF but never quite got there.

Having come back to fantasy games and PF in particular I love the attention to detail. Some of the classic monsters aren't just random monsters to be encountered. Goblins, Kobolds, Orcs, even Giants all have a level of character and backstory added to them. And Golarion exists on a number of layers. It isn't just "ok here is this city or this nation". They have a disaster story. Ancient kingdoms built on top of other lost kingdoms. They have a weird mix of deities and worshippers that alignment-wise can kind of overlap. And their adventure paths (at least the ones I've read) are meaty with potential.

The art is what really gets me though. I have honestly struggled to find pictures that made me go 'meh'. The maps are lovely, the interior design of the books looks nice, and it doesn't seem to detract or distract from reading.

I don't know about this whole one race dominance thing as I've never had or experienced this problem in any game I've run or heard it come from any player I've GM-ed for and I've been gaming for a long time. But to each their own I suppose.

I do worry about the bloat though, especially from having played Rifts quite a bit. I like what Pathfinder has now but I don't want to run into a situation where every time they publish a book 3-4 new classes pop up. This usually means some new rules and making classes harder to find and would eventually cause the core book to become obsolete/out of date and so on.

And thank you for adding the magic items to the main book. That always bugged me about the original AD&D books, even 3.5.