If the cleric has any front-lining capability whatsoever, it seems pretty well-rounded to me. Especially since they are all on the generally high end of the power scale.
Do not use brutes as they have no really effective tank unless the cleric is spec'd for survival or your summoner has a tank pet.
Ranged attackers in area's with cover will allow your party to shine, single creatures with a cr of apl+2 should prove to be a strong challenge, aim for monsters with loads of debuffs and weak damage or aoe damage effects to spread it around the party more. If you want to challenge them use four cr4 brute like melee characters, that will probably be the hardest fight they can face.
I'd use a ramping system to find their stride, a cr 8 encounter first while they have all their resources, then a cr 4 encounter to test how fast they burn through spells, then a cr 6 to challenge them late on, then a cr 4 night encounter to see how they do when they are short on spells.
You will probably find they are more resiliant than you first thought qs long as they do not nova all the time.
Well, my honest advice, is if it's your first time DMing pathfinder, starting at level 1 would have been much more solid choice, so you can learn things with less abilities getting in the way, and know what your players can do better.
That being said, theres nothing 'un-well rounded' about your party.
They have healing, control, frontline (cleric or eidolon, or heck, gunslinger - they can wear heavy armor) and ranged damage covered
Human Cleric
Elf Witch
Gnome Summoner
Human GunslingerThis will be my first time DMing for Pathfinder, all of my other GMing experience has been with other systems. Is there anything I should be aware of when dealing with this party set up in terms of what kind of things to avoid throwing at them? Everyone is level 6.
Maybe you could have them hire a figher or barbarian/NPC? That would really balance them out. I hope you guys enjoy Pathfinder as much as we do and keep us up to date on your progress...
Human Cleric
Elf Witch
Gnome Summoner
Human GunslingerThis will be my first time DMing for Pathfinder, all of my other GMing experience has been with other systems. Is there anything I should be aware of when dealing with this party set up in terms of what kind of things to avoid throwing at them? Everyone is level 6.
How is the Witch built? What kind of Summoner?
How do you normally build your encounters?
I wouldn't worry too much about altering how you construct encounters, then. As Morgan mentioned, you'll probably need to be a little thoughtful about how you include traps. And I really like Egoish's suggestions for a series of test encounters, to get a feel for how your group performs under various circumstances and use that as a baseline reference.
And while the style of game is at least cosmetically different, go with what you know! Keep building your encounters more or less the same way you've been doing, and worry about changing what you're doing after you find what works and what doesn't under a new system.
Trial and error is absolutely the best way.
I suggest throwing them up against at least six opponents, with at least one maybe two spellcasters, such that the CR is APL +1 and see how they perform. Then tweak and repeat.
Don't use CR blindly, but learn the group's tactics and evaluate how they will manage with certain threats. Don't 100% exploit weaknesses, but include them in a good number of encounters.
Watch your other factors: keep them at WBL and 15-20 points in ability scores. You have a lot of casters, so include soft and hard timers in most of your adventures (but it's okay to let them 'go nova' once in a while for dramatic scenes).
The single most common error in encounter balance I see on these forums is not realizing when you are deviating from CR assumptions... one of the CR assumptions is multiple consecutive encounters — but sadly GMs are not adequately advised on this. Keep them in the encounter site, or if they are are allowed to leave, crank up the challenge each time they return.
Well, my honest advice, is if it's your first time DMing pathfinder, starting at level 1 would have been much more solid choice, so you can learn things with less abilities getting in the way, and know what your players can do better.
That being said, theres nothing 'un-well rounded' about your party.
They have healing, control, frontline (cleric or eidolon, or heck, gunslinger - they can wear heavy armor) and ranged damage covered
The gunslinger would likely be provoking, or be using a Pistol-Sword Combo to do that, doable, but reloading becomes a minge unless your character has a prehensile tail, or at least quickdraw. Also, the heavy armor proficiency will either take feats or being the Gun Tank archetype.
That said, you're right in that the cleric and eidolon should be able to take on front-line tasks. Clerics get medium armor and a proficiency with a deity's favoered weapon, and eidolons are absolute monsters with their natural attacks.
Unless the Eidolon is being built as a skill monkey and the cleric is one of the archetypes that give up the armor and weapon proficiencies, your party should be good.
If the party truly isn't made well though, remember that death need not be the end for a player or the entire party. If someone dies for want of a meat shield between them and an ogre, they'll then have the chance to build a new guy that can fill the niche.
If the summoner is building the eidolon with evasion in mind (flying) and he himself is going to shoot with crossbow... it is not definitely a front-liner.
Hope that cleric and gunslinger are though enought.
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Run it as you would a normal party. Suggest to the summoner his eidolon should try to be a bit fighter like, and see if your cleric can at least armour up to take a hit or two.
These guys should be ok. Let them leRn their characters organically before hitting them with anything more than CR +1 for a while.
It's less about what the character can do as it is about what the player is capable of doing with his character.
Maybe pick up a module built for level 6. The second volume of most ADventure Paths fall into this range, so check the encounters in those for an idea.
The party composition itself seems perfectly valid to me, if you give them a chance to learn their dynamics a bit.
Cheers.
IMO you should not adjust encounters to fit a party. I have this opinion both from a DM and player experience.
As a DM I believe that it is the player's responsibility to creatively find a way to thrive as a party. From a player's experience I would actually be offended if I found that my DM was catering encounters to make it easier for myself or my party. It would make me think that the DM thinks that either my character or my party is inadequate. If I found this to be the case then I would seek to find ways to fill the gap either with my character or via suggestions to the other players as to how to fill those gaps.
And I think that is what needs to happen here. Others have filled in the reason why. It wouldn't be so bad if the Summoner wasn't purposefully removing himself and his Eidolon from melee combat as a potential target. That is just going to serve to make things more difficult as it is going to leave the rest of the party to be taking just as many hits among fewer targets.
If the Witch focuses on battlefield control and the cleric is a passable tank then this might help. Having the Cleric focus a bit on summoning might help to give more targets as well. If all else fails there are always hirelings and pets.