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personally I'm against limitating too much. as long as the character concept makes sense and the characters have a good background story, I as a GM would allow it. that said, if you really want to restrict creation, I'd say: CRB and APG only for classes, CRB and Inner Sea Races only for races.
It becomes a little bit trickier with Traits, Feats and Archetypes. IMO, because Traits often help develop a character's background and sometimes players have a very specific character concept in mind and the Archetypes and Traits can help to build that concept, story telling wise. The best solution, I think, would be to sit down with every player during the creation phase and see what Trait suits his concept best or if the Archetypes are really needed. If you fear they become to powerful characters use Drawbacks.
If you're concerned about over-powered characters, I'm not sure book-blocking is necessarily the right answer.
First, in what is quite possibly an unnecessary reminder, the AP assumes 4 pc's with a 15 point ability buy. There's probably tolerance for up to a 20 point buy, but anything above that (and the more popular die rolling methods produce a 20 point or above outcome) and the pc's will be "overpowered" regardless of source book used.
The AP is written against what I describe as a "lowest common denominator" target. It's written to appeal the broadest spectrum of pc groups, from hardcore min-maxers to all-in role-players. The npc's and monsters are not highly optimized nor are their written tactics aggressive or well-tailored to maximize pc danger. So, any player with a modicum (or higher) amount of game-mastery (and I assume from description, your's have it) are going to build effective characters that have an advantage. And might appear over-powered even if you limit source books along the lines suggested by Hythlodeus above (which are pretty good suggestions by the way.)
I get the value proposition on book limits - as a fellow gm, I like anything that makes my life easier and simple/straightforward = easier. But I suggest you try a more nuanced approach - restrict pc's to races and classes that are likely to be found in Varisia - so no samuarai or kenku or gunslingers, etc. Encourage them to tie their characters to Sandpoint, including encouraging taking appropriate traits. (Warning: traits are like mini-feats and can be exploited by... umm... good character designers. Not saying don't use them but watch for abuse. Ditto on drawbacks - if the drawback relies on a mechanism or role-playing structure that never occurs in your group's playstyle, it's not much of a drawback.) If all of your pc's are on par with one another, the AP can be scaled to give them challenge. And this forum is filled with people who can help you do that (if you want that kind of help.)
Of course, a simpler option would be to note the publication date for the Anniversary Edition (July 2012) and preclude any source material published after that since none of the npc's etc. have access that material.
I usually limit to Paizo books unless there's a character option that's just impossible to get right (for example, the same flair as a Swordsage). This might even present new and interesting concepts.
For example, one of the players in my current campaign really wanted to play a Ninja. So his character was initially sent to Magnimar to track and kill the Kaijitsu family, only to be shipwrecked and saved by Lonjiku. He swore a life debt to his savior and ended up spying on Ameiko on her father's behalf to make sure she didn't get herself killed. He worked in the Rusty Dragon for several years before the campaign began, honing his skills in secret. And with Lonjiku's death, he told Ameiko the truth (and also hunted down and killed Tsuto), and she freed him from his debt, giving him a new reason to stick in town and befriend the rest of the party as he looks for a new purpose.
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15 PB was an error. 20 PB is the base assumption of APs.
Having trouble getting "Reply" to work right; sorry. Is there a way to delete posts?
OK, look at: Kyra's statblock
This is one of the "Iconics" used in RotRL: AE. She goes with the iconic Fighter, Sorceress, and Rogue.
Count her stats: a 14 costs 5 points, a 10 costs 0, a 12 costs 2, an 11 costs 1, a 17 costs 13 but she put her human racial here so it's really only a 15 which costs 7, then another 14 costs 5. Add 5+0+2+1+7+5 = 20. Pathfinder is a 20-point buy adventure system.
> LINKIFICATION COMPLETE
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My apologies, but I thought the APs were designed with characters built on 15-point builds, and only recently was Pathfinder Society restrictions increased to allow 20-point build characters in the last season or 2. If this was also changed for the APs, which AP was this change made effective?
For the OP, I would personally allow only the Core Rulebook, Advanced books, and Ultimate Books (i.e. books that start with Advanced ____________ or Ultimate _________). This combination allows more than enough material for your PCs to build solid concepts.
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Runelords is a presumed 15 PB. Pathfinder Society is a 20 PB. To demonstrate, I believe these are the correct stats for Seoni (Iconic Sorcerer) for Runelords and for Society:
Runelords: 8, 14, 12, 10, 13, 17 ( I have the 3.5 version and added 2 to the charisma to represent PF verion, so can somebody check the anniversary edition? These match her Council of Thieves stats).
Society: 10, 14, 12, 10, 13, 18
The difference is 5 points. At least through Council all the pregen PCs are 15 point builds. If that changed, it was well after that and after the Anniversary edition according to my GM.
The APs all assume 15-point builds.
That said, you can allow a 25-point build and compensate by adding +1 to each of the six stats for the monsters as adding +1 to the stats of a 15-point build (assuming 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) turns it into a 25-point build.