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I'm the GM for a group that just started Rise of the Runelords, also with 3 players.
The adventure path is written assuming a party of 4 players. If your GM is willing, he can certainly adjust the difficulty of the encounters for the size of your party, but it is extra work on his part.
I elected to take the easy route and gave my players and extra character to use in combat. They're free to ask the character about things she knows of course. Outside of combat she's essentially an NPC that accompanies the party (Life Oracle since the party needed some support/healing). In combat the players control her/track her character sheet. It's occasionally a nice tool for me as well because I can use the character to really tie the players into the story.
As far as whether or not lacking a straight arcane magic user is going to hurt you... I'm not sure. I've only just started it myself. I would advise you guys try to pick up most of the knowledge skills between the three of you, and for the Cleric to pick up Spellcraft at the least.
Your party is actually pretty good...
Though NPC/GMPC Wizard(or Sorcerer) would really benefit your party.
Maybe convince your GM to give you all a free Leadership Feat later. and have them fill in roles you don't have filled.
NOTE: You can convert the Arcane Caster into one of the three cohorts.
NOTE2: Sorcerer is the best if you are running two characters as they are Spontaneous and easily used.
I am thinking he can limit Leadership Cohorts to support characters. Like a Bard, Anti-Trap Rogue, and the Sorcerer/Crafting Wizard.
I honestly don't see arcane as needed nearly as much as others seem to.
Your party make up is not half bad. Though honestly with a small party and having the best self healing meat shield in the game I personally wouldn't really want a very healing focused cleric. I would want someone that could heal in that spot yes but not focused on it. Ideally and archer bard/inquisitor/paladin. But you really don;t have a say there I don't suppose.
Another bit of advice is since you have a highish cha maybe the dangerously curious trait? With both the ninja and the pal having a good UMS it can really help fill in the holes in a party.
I would also suggest paladin of vengeance. Honestly you should not be using channel energy mid battle since 1. you can self heal as a swift action and 2. You have a cleric focused on healing. So trading it for more damage output has really no down side.
Also channel energy in general is worth less the smaller the party and even in a bigger party does not scale that well.
Ohh and look at the feat Fey foundling for first lvl. For a paladin it is one of the best feats you can take.
You are most welcome. Paladin happens to be one of my favorite classes (number 2 behind Magus.)
Is the cleric dead set on a weapon type? Because a bow is still a solid choice even if not focused on it. For that matter the group is very weak at range so you and the Ninja also making sure to keep back up ranged weapons is a pretty good idea.
More advice on feats would be unsanctioned knowledge at some point. With this you can fill in some of the stable arcane spells you will be missing. Things from the bard spell list are of interest here. Heroism, Haste, and things like that. Some spell lvls will be a hard choice but well that is a nice hard choice to have you know what I mean?
As for your own spells if you have not looked into it yet Hero's Defiance might very well be the best fist lvl spell in the game. Get out of death free card? Yes please.
Well I hope this rambling turns out to be of some use. Happy gaming friend.
-edit- Ohh yeah with such limited spells per day taking unsanctioned knowledge makes a few pearls of power a very good idea.
Is your GM against one (or more) of your players playing two characters. If not, what are group (four players in the group) usually does is any player using a full caster class (eg Wizard) only plays one character do to all the reading (spells etc.) that must be done. Those who choose not to have a full caster class may play a second character.
The thing is our group likes six PC's in a party and as the GM I have know problem with that because the reason everyone gets together is to have fun and I'm sure not going to try and stop that from happening. Heck my two sons and I get together once a week to play and they each have three characters to run and we still have tons of fun and I get to add some extra badies along the way, hence win/win.
Current party, Paladin, Magus, Vitalist, and Ninja, Barbarian, Sorcerer.
A good wizard can stand in for the fighter or the rogue if necessary.
A good cleric can stand in for the fighter, wizard or rogue.
A good rogue can stand in for the fighter.
A good fighter can...hit things.
IMO, the only class that is almost a must is the healer. Otherwise you will be spending a lot of downtime, playing overly cautiously, and spending tons of money on healing belts, potions, wands, etc.
Fighters/rogues can be easily dispensed with. Wizards are very handy, but are mostly a speedy way to accomplish mundane tasks. Fireball saves you from cutting through tons of orcs, but you COULD do that. Divination saves time investigating. Teleport saves time walking. Etc.
As long as the party has someone who can reliably heal, you're golden.
I'd love it if my gm let me dual-box... Running characters is no kinda hassle for me. GMs play a lot more characters than that at once...
If he thought having an extra character were a problem he might also consider letting your characters gestalt.
We're running rise of the runelords at the moment with a party of 4 but our problem is kinda silly. Nobody in the party wants to play a base class. They all wanna play wierd stuff.
GM feels like it'll kick our butts if we dont have the fighter/cleric/wizard/rogue bases covered, so we're all running gestalts where half your gestalt is a core class and half your gestalt is whatever whackadoo thing you were thinking of running.
Its been a blast so far and still very challenging. After all even a gestalt only has one set of hit points.
Dump the ninja and get a wizard. Far more useful.
Thats exactly the trouble we run into... Dude doesnt wanna play a wizard. Wants to play a ninja... But if the GM still feels like you need a wizard then you either need a dualbox pc wizard, an npc wizard hireling, or a gestalt ninjawizard! (or palawizard or wizardcleric)
Of the three options our party chose gestalt because its fun like crazy. The disadvantage to the OP choosing gestalt is if they did it they'd still only be 3 sets of hit points where a pc/npc wizard would at least be a 4th man on the field.
You don't need a wizard. Trust me. I've played campaigns with only warriors, thieves and healers.
Just walk instead of teleporting. Use intimidate and diplomacy instead of divination. Use rope instead of flying. Use stealth instead of invisibility. Use swords instead of fireballs. Use disable device instead of knock.
Is it harder? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Is it still possible? Entirely. A few magic items, some UMD ranks, and a willingness to do things the old fashioned way, and you're good to go.
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My group has the DM playing a DMPC more often than not. Doesn't come up with the answers, but if we get stuck the DM has a feasible way to get a clue to us. Makes the party complete because the DM chooses the unfilled role.
Your party invites a DM run sorcerer. Can have average Int/Wis so can believably not have all the answers. Doesn't have to choose which spells to prepare, so no awkward scenarios where the DM doesn't want to pick the spells prepared because he knows the challenges ahead and can't realistically 'forget' that knowledge.
If the DM doesn't want to do all that work, you can make the sorcerer between you and the DM can let you play it and take over temporarily when he sees fit.
In our experience this is a more playable alternative than a three member party with no arcane caster.
Something you may want to talk over with your GM is using the gestalt rules from 3.5. I had a three player group for Rise of the Runelords and this worked out pretty well.