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Ha what are you playing the Tomb of Horrors? I am glad your DM is taxing you so that your casters have to worry about things like this.
Baring up the Doors isn't a bad idea, I am not sure what your goal is and if its time sensitive, but I would consider this option.
Attempt to use diplomacy/intimidate when can to avoid fighting
All else fails, its a game. Die then you run the game put your GM in that spot and see what he does.
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Die?
Seriously though the bigger dungeons need rest. That said characters who expend all their resources early are going to suffer. This is a learning experience for players not to just hammer through their resources and instead pace themselves.
As a GM you should allow players to rest in larger dungeons or allow the players to retreat to rest.
If the players abuse this though feel free to have the biggest bads come looking for them...
The main thing I do if I find myself in this situation is I ask myself "How did I get in this situation, and how do I avoid it happening again?"
Which then leads to a longer analysis of tactics from the perspective of resource management first and foremost.
But at the moment, the goal is to survive, so, yeah, finding a place to hole up and rest is probably a good idea. If you have a ranger or any other dude with "survival" skill, you can attempt to mislead any pursuers or patrols and hide your tracks to your current hiding spot.
In answer to "is this how it's supposed to go" there's no way to know without knowing why your party exhausted its resources and whether there were other options that could have helped you avoid doing so. That's why the analysis I mentioned above is so important.
Fundamentally, especially at low levels, Pathfinder (and most RPGs like it) are games of resource management. You have to understand how to conserve limited resources and only use them when required. I've played with way too many spellcasters who just blast away with whatever they have without regard for whether it's an effective way to use their spells or not. Not saying that your group does that, but it's worth pondering.
In general my spellcasters and any other resource-limited character is going to do everything they possibly can to avoid using up those resources unless they believe it is absolutely necessary to do so.
That's why my druid uses a bow.
If you cant leave the dungeon (always advisable even if your business isnt done yet) then like you said, bar the doors and let your casters get some sleep. Even if that means waiting 18 hours or whatever for divine casters. Also make sure the casters in particular pick up wands and scrolls to extend their day, using lesser resources when things are winding down if this is a common occurence.
Be more tactical when you use limited resources. Save your spells for big threats. Focus on spells that give you more band for your buck(last longer have multiple effects, control the field)You do have a light crossbow right? Shoot all the things once your out of spells. Don't rage round one of every combat if you think its either going to be easy enough that you don't need it or long enough that you will run out of steam mid battle.
Nothing wrong with resting to regain spells and abilities but make sure you make the area as safe as possible. The average gm loves to attack sleeping parties. I find that resting for 10 hours works best. One caster takes first watch then sleeps for 8 hours another take last watch after sleeping 8 and your non magic chars take the middle watches because they don't need uninterrupted sleep. Relying on sleeping is very dm dependent though. A lot of them will keep attacking you to make things harder and disrupt your casters sleep.
do you not have items to help? bring a wand of cure light wounds (or better yet, a wand of infernal healing) will keep people up and fighting. for casters there are spells like keep watch, rope trick, and nap stack to get spells back.
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Having seen the OPs second message it sounds as though there are a couple of issues.
here is the thing-i asked the GM(who has been playing for several years) if this is common, and he said that even in his higher level games or campaigns his party runs into the same issue quite a bit. I mean it only takes 1 hardcore battle without the ability to flee to use up a lot of your goodies. Its like getting to the end of DOOM and having full ammo in every gun. by the end you are wondering if you are gonna make it.. heh. Anyways, GM said he isnt sure whats supposed to happen in these situations, or if the game really wants us to go back to wherever and rest all the time.
It reads as the the adeventure could allow you to retreat from the dungeon and that the GM hasn't read the adventure thoroughly to know what happens if you take a break.
Long standing good practice (i.e. 1e era advice) for long dungeon crawls is to not slog your way through a dungeon until you run out of resources and then retreat but rather to plan reconnaisance missions and then strike missions. Between each mission the GM should update the adventure to reflect the change in time and circumstances.
With reconnaisance missions, the aim is not to distrub anything but to gain maximum insight into the terrain and the enemy. The follow-up strike mission seeks to avoid the weaker creatures (that sap resources) and hit the major objective e.g the mini-boss of the mission or collapse a major corridor etc and then retreat again.
By doing these missions instead of a general slog the BBEG would have to repair the damage and can't dedicate resources to either chasing the party or reinforcing the defences. With the general slog, the BBEG's reources have taken a minor dent that can be repaired and reinforced and be stronger for the next attack.
If retreat to the surface isn't an option, then the party's first objective is to reconnaiter a base camp. This would involve retreating from anything that looks like a defended or patrolled area and strike at something defensible and out of the way. The back of a rubbish dump, might be suitable for example where the vermin creatures would require despatching to make the area safe.
There is still no way from the description given to know if there was no alternative to the exhaustion of your limited resources.
If there was no alternative, then you're just stuck where you are.
If there were alternatives, then you need to learn how to utilize them. From where we on the messageboard sit, hearing what you have said, the most we can do is sympathize and say "wow, that's tough dude. Hide and good luck."
I will say that this is one of my personal obsessions in this game, and it is quite unusual for my casters to run out of spells before some other issues force the party to camp. But that's because I generally deliberately build, equip and play my characters that way. The only time I would not do so is if I had a deliberate role playing reason for squandering resources.
Having said that, let's see if there is anything you can do about your situation given that you appear to be out of spells and hurt.
1. Does anyone in your party have decent ranks in the "heal" skill? If so you might be able to use the "treat deadly wounds" ability to restore some hit points.
2. You have a ranger. Use his "survival" skills to find a hiding place and hide your tracks. That's one thing rangers are good for, and it can even work in dungeons.
3. Build traps. You can make simple traps fairly easily. Again rangers sometimes have invested in "disable device" which is a skill that can be used for this. Traps can slow down or discourage pursuers, and at least should give you time to set up a defense. If you defeated enemies and looted their crossbows, a bit of twine is all you really need to set a decent damage-causing trap.
4. Make your hiding place defensible. Arrange rubble, rocks or other things to make your enemies move in certain areas. Have those areas soaked in lantern oil or other flammable material. Ready a torch to be tossed into it when the enemies show up.
5. Read up on "Tuckers Kobolds" and adopt some of their strategies.
6. If you have any healing spells left, concentrate them on your most defensive character and have the other characters use ranged weapons if possible.
7. Scout around. Look for secret doors, secret compartments, anything that might have something you can find to help you.
Supervise your fellow party members and offer criticisms on everything they do or run up and start doing unarmed strikes.
Yeah hes not well liked when he runs out of resources.
You seem like a pretty decent party. With the exception of healing, do you ever try to just whale on stuff? The Barb is still very effective w/o rage, and even the inquisitor and cleric shouldn't be too far behind that they can't help. Maybe if you are low on healing have the low AC characters get into flanking and fight defensively, you are helping by giving the flanking bonus, but you are also that much less likely to use up another limited resource (hp).
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From an operational standpoint Hugo Rune pretty much nailed it. RE:Play smarter.
Two approaches to the problem:
Resource management and use of abilities as you progress through the mod - such as how you utilize abilities, cast spells when tactics and staging a fight or ambush is more economical, etc. Hugo already covered that part - use your brains and tactics more than relying on X ability to resolve problems.
The second part is how you address the healing/resting issue. The variables of the situation make it hard to offer one answer. If it's a Dead Dungeon - one that is mostly a ruin or crypt with undead or monsters that are not organized into a group - then you can retreat as far and as remote as possible to and bar the doors. Cleric can then sub out any remaining spells for healing and try to heal as much as possible(here is where I disagree with AD - heal evenly, slight bias to the fighter types), maybe keeping a few critical spells in reserve.
Always keep the option to bail within reach, that means everyone at enough points to take one hit and keep running. Once someone drops, party members may be compelled to fight to escape, which may turn into a TPK.
In a living dungeon/base the situation is a bit trickier and depends on how much damage you have done to the group and how big the location is. Even if your group decides to camp outside if the enemy is intact enough from your initial assault they will be sending search and destroy teams out to find you (rangers and rogues help to counter detection). So there are too many variables for one answer here. I suppose the best would be how hard did you hit them, and how much do the remaining forces have left, and what they know about your group. Deception and disinformation can go a long way to destablize a force that already lost half of their defenders.
If you can sleep once and regain spells, you can sleep twice and regain more hit points along with a full day of healing. You probably want to move your camp and set sentries so nobody tracks you back to your lair, but unless you have a active dangerous boss with minions, you can probably get away with it.
You can suck it up small fry!
Seriosly though, these are the times to remember your mundane equipment list. Do not forget the humble piton, or the noble bell and trip wire. The player paralysed without magic is playing only half the game. I love solving problems without magic. Its my favorite thing about low levels.
To address one of your questions though, yes you bar a door (if your lucky to have one) and get what rest you can. Maybe someone doesn't sleep and lives with the -2 for a day. I remember playing in a game where we piled zombie corpses against a door, while zombies on the other side milled about all night groaning. Hit points were in the single digits all around, aside from one unconscious character, and we were pretty sure one was going to start trying to get through at some point. But that did not happen, and in the morning we emerged with a few more HP and fought our way out.