First off, I know there is no one who technically has trap finding. That's a concern and one we're trying to figure out how to address, but no one wants to have their characters dictated by something like that.
The group looks like this:
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Human Oracle (Ancestor) whom intends to take some levels of Living Monolith, one at least.
Plans to use a reach weapon and serve as a second liner combatant and combat support.
Aasimar Dawnflower Dervish
Aasimar Dawnflower Dervish
Twins who grew up fighting together. Plan is for both to take Paired Opportunist and Broken Wing Gambit to reflect that, not sure if they'll be better off dipping into something to make that easier - maybe a level of Cavalier/Order of the Flame?
Halfling Summoner
Standard Summoner, eidolon takes the form of a giant multi-tailed scorpion that he rides.
Now the group lacks a particularly dangerous ranged threat (as well as the aforementioned trap finding issues), but all are casters and all are competent combatants and we feel like it'd be pretty strong against most challenges both in and out of combat.
You mentioned the trapfinding thing. In an Adventure Path with lots of ancient "Egyptian" ruins to explore, it is a *big* thing. The group I am DM'ing for didn't have a Trapfinder for the first two sessions, but they sure did by the third...
Also, you do not seem to have a skill-heavy guy (unless the CHA-hungry Summoner also has an awesome INT score). There are lots and lots of skill checks in this AP that can make some encounters much easier, and one or two that are solid roadblocks, as in 'If you don't make this skill roll, you don't get the clue you need to continue in the AP'.
I don't want to give anything away, but many of the Adventure Paths have a new Adventure Mechanic in them (Kingmaker had Exploration and Kingdom Building ones, and Wrath of the Righteous had Mass Combat rules), and without a "Skill Guy", the mechanic that is introduced in Mummy's Mask will probably be pretty rough. For reference, my group has a Magus, who is getting the job done marvelously. Any of the INT-based casters would probably do just fine.
I would agree with Ithnaar, it would really be helpful to have some rogue-ish skills. It might be an interesting twist to have one of the twins be more of the "light" one, and the other more of a "shadow" one in their abilities - one brash and direct, the other subtle and careful. How about making the second a bard, for example with the dawnflower dervish archetype if you want to keep the theme? Bards have plenty of skill points, and with versatile performance (which this archetype, unlike the other dervish bard, keeps) are some of the best skill characters in the setting. Vanilla bards and other archetypes also work - you don't have to have a similarly named archetype to take the dervish dance feat, after all! This rounds up the party, and a natural lore master as the bard helps you gather all matters of clues and investigations. Aasimars work pretty well with bards, and their special favourite class bonus is awesome - +1/4 to the bonuses of one bardic performance per level. If you go with the regular bard, the group will love you. If you go with a dervish bard (performances are self-only but twice as powerful), well, your fighter may struggle to keep up with you in a fight.
The concept works very well with some other classes, too - investigators, alchemists, inquisitors, rogues or ninjas (reflavor as a more magical rogue archetype) are also great. They can all fight okayish, and help fill a useful niche in such a campaign.
Okay, back to bards - as you may guess I really like the idea of a bard in this party and role - here are some suggestions about bards and handy archetypes. Overall, consider the vanilla bard first. You keep the awesome versatile performance, which mean several of your perform skills can "double" as two other skills each (which is why bards are likely the best skill characters in the game, maybe except for investigators) and bardic knowledge and its related tricks are handy when you are in the archeology business. The spells are good, the overall class is damn handy (and the bits you don't like can be traded away through an archetype). Just mind the fortitude save, and be sure to pick a well-scaling performance for the aasimar favored class bonus. As for the rest:
- Archeologist: perform becomes self-only (though the party has plenty of buff spells), but you pick up a lot of rogue tricks. When it comes to excavating ruins in Osirion, almost no one does it better.
- Archivist: you lose inspire courage, but get a defensive buff "performance" against creatures you identify and their abilities. I don't want to spoil things but seriously, what are the odds of you NOT coming across tons of undead/outsiders/other monsters with nasty abilities in a path like this? You also lose versatile performance with its social buffs and some of the other "party tricks", but your lore mastery and knowledge are buffed and you can confuse people with your edumication verbousnessitude.
- Daredevil: I am normally not a fan due to losing inspire courage, but when it comes to exploration, traps or the like this is actually solid. The other features are also good for that kind of campaign.
- Dervish Dancer / Dervish of Dawn - I mentioned them already. Both lose lore master/bardic knowledge and one essentially loses versatile performance, but when it comes to cutting things in tiny pieces with style, they are golden. Praise the sun and pass the tulwar!
- Detective: another tomb explorer ace. Instead of inspire courage, you get an hour-long party exploration buff for 3 rounds of performance and some Poirot tricks later on. While you lose some of the more obscure bardic knowledge buffs or some of the social tricks, you get access to more divinations, trapfinding and further bonuses to perception. Possibly the best trapsmith of all bards.
- Dirge bard: considering the importance of death in pseudo-egyptian societies and how much time you can expect to spend in tombs, dirge bards can be surprisingly effective. They are experts on things ancient and dead, and don't scare easily. The loss of versatile performance hurts, but some free necromancy spells and more ways to identify/affect undead are an okay trade in such a campaign. You lose loremaster to be even better at scaring things, but keep the base bardic knowledge.
- Duettist: the loss of bardic knowledge hurts, but you are a skill monkey with a familiar - has access to all your skill ranks, who uses your versatile performance, can perform instead of you or boost your performance (and eventually you can have 2 active performances at once). It may not be related to this path like some of the others, but for a skill monkey character you are still very, very good.
- Flame Dancer - not a huge change mechanically, but thematically appropriate - you lose some minor abilities and become better in dealing with fire and heat. It's not like you are somewhere hot, right?
- Sandman - a more discrete bard/rogue that can steal spells, open locks and remove traps. Not quite as knowledgeable or social, but quite "shadowy" if you want to try the duality siblings as I suggested.
One more thing, regarding the group lacking a ranged threat. Dawnflower dervishes lose none of the base fighter's ranged potential, and if anything they tend to have high dexterity. Just because you are not a specialist does not mean you cannot - and should not - pick a composite bow, put your second weapon training there and perhaps add a few feats. Almost all the archetype's abilities are also good for archers, and this character can essentially be a switch hitter, except with scimitar (or falchion) as a melee weapon.
First off, I very much appreciate the responses. A couple of quick clarifications:
The Aasimar twins together will have solid ranged options - battle dance + high dex + arcane strike + various other potential buffs do indeed add up. I just meant to say that we didn't have the sort of ranged threat that a dedicated archer or blaster-type might offer and wasn't sure if that would be a big detriment or not.
Skill-wise the way we're kind of looking at things is the Dervishes will have effectively maxed out Perception, Stealth, Acrobatics and (via Versatile Performance) Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Bluff and Intimidate, all fairly soon. They'll also have a touch of Knowledge: Religion and Escape Artist.
The Oracle will have Healing and a pretty diverse smattering of Knowledges while the Summoner will have Knowledge: Planes for certain.
Apart from trap-finding, what skills would we be lacking that the AP might require?
I'll look into the Player's Guide. Perhaps one twin would focus on Perception with Trap-Finding and the other on Disable Device? The two plan on serving as the 'scouts' of the group already.
EDIT: Shaman, I really appreciate the effort put into that lengthy and informative response, but the players are in love with the idea of playing identical builds intended to be complimentary. The Halfling player actually seriously considered running an Archeologist (with a dip in Halfling Opportunist) but felt that the group lacked any sort of legitimate 'tank' and has always wanted to run a Summoner type.
Ah, I thought they were taking the fighter dervish archetype. 2 Bards can definitely help in the skills department. Yes, a dedicated range character can do more when it comes to ranged combat, but it should be possible to get a smattering of spells to either fight from a range or be able to negate a ranged advantage (i.e. invisibility sphere, fickle winds, etc). In that case, my main advice would be for someone to get the trapfinding trait and to put some ranks in old languages and a few atypical knowledges like history. It may come in handy with how many ruins you can expect to delve in.
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Skills: Arcana, Religion, Perception, and Disable Device will be the skills you need the *most*. Anybody can find non-magical traps, which should get you through the first half of the AP without too much issue. HOWEVER, there are a *lot* of magical traps, and I don't think there is a single mundane one in book 5.
Secondary skills: Spellcraft, Appraise, History, and Diplomacy. ID'ing spells and materials, and sweet talking the nonessential fights.
Tertiary skills: Anything combat related (acro, intimidate, escape artist, etc).
The aforementioned spoiler free blurb about the AP's special mechanic is all about knowledge checks. Read the Book 3 summary to get an idea of what you will be doing with said checks. Most of them have 2-3 options, so as long as you have a few good knowledge skills, you shouldn't miss out on anything really there.
Let your oracle and summoner know that they will need to have enough skills allocated to both ID items with spellcraft and ID spell effects with Arcana with relative reliability. Our oracle is finding out the hard way that only a few skill points into Arcana makes it hard to identify unique magical effects in this ancient network of earthworks they're currently delving.
ALSO, DISCOURAGE DISCOURAGE DISCOURAGE the campaign trait that makes certain ancient loot sell for more. It is an accounting nightmare and I eventually had to force one of my players to retrain his trait.
Don´t magical traps show up with a detect magic search, though? I do think it is a good idea to have a good trapsmith for this module, but still.