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First a couple academic notes. The AP is designed for 4 pc's with a 15 point ability score buy. More pc's (like 5) will make it easier (as written.) The AP is written in a "middle of the road" difficulty setting (my opinion) - the npc's/enemies do not all have optimum tactics or optimized builds.
Without knowing why your gm said it would be "hard to survive" it's hard to give advice. I assume said gm will be scaling the encounters to account for 5 pc's but if done correctly, not sure that would be harder than the as-written AP for 4 pc's.
After that, all that's left is the basics - which it seems you might already know - the pc's are strongest as a team when all four core functions are covered: skills, combat, arcane magic, divine magic. As long as you have those covered you should be good.
There is a lot of wilderness activity so a ranger might be good but on that logic so would a druid. And it's hard to find a core class about which "might be good" can't be said. Except wizard, about which "might be really good" is more accurate.
Latrecis gave really good advice.
The fighter/Barbarian should handle the Wilderness stuff if the right skills are taken.
Wizards get a lot of love in this AP (but a witch would also be solid)
A divine spell caster makes any party better.
Depending on the build of the rouge and cleric/oracle a second front line combat person could be useful or a versatile class like bard/inquisitor
So far are 5 party group is doing fine (Finished chapter 1
Swashbuckler (whirling Derish)
Arcanist
Cleric of Phantasma
Orgue 3/1 Magus
Rogue 2/Sorcerer 2
Our 5 group party is doing well, after a TPK in Thistletop. Luckily, only 3 of the 5 PCs were present at the time, so the remaining 2 PCs provided continuity to the campaign.
We are currently levels 9-10 and have the following party:
Fighter (2 weapon fighter)
Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager)
Arcanist (White Mage)
Oracle of Battle
Alchemist (Grenadier)
My players were almost totally focused on fighting to the exclusion of spellcasting: fighter, paladin, barbarian and alchemist (the last with some pseudo-magic utility).
Around the time of Fort Rannick, the barbarian took his last bow, and his player created a sorcerer to continue the campaign. My feeling is that he's going to give the party a *lot* more options than they had before, even if he is "only" a spontaneous spellcaster with limited spell selection.
IMHO any party without a dedicated (and clever) arcane spellcaster will suffer in this AP at several points.
I would go with:
Transmuter wizard half orc with primary strength and a falchion, and a trait to get survival as a class skill.
Ilusionist wizard with the trapfinder trait, disable device and stealth as class skills.
Evoker Wizard, full of fireballs.
Abjurer with pragmatical activator trait to use UMD for wands of CLW
Conjurer with augmented summoning.
You might swap the Abjurer for a witch if you want.
This AP is seriously good for Wizards :)
Now, if you want a less hardcore group, my suggestion is always a group of casters with levels 1-6 and 3/4 BAB. I feel those are the best balanced and well rounded classes.
Magus, Inquisitor, Hunter, Warpriest and Bard, for example, is cool.
My group just finished this AP and did very, very well with this mix:
Elven Wizard (lots of spellbooks to be had, so a wizard is a great fit)
Human Cleric (Fire/Healing domains, Empowered cure spells and Fireball!!)
Dwarven Rouge1/Ranger X (main tank, lots of giant-class enemies to max out the advantage of dwarven racial and ranger favored enemy abilities)
Half-Elven Druid (extremely maxed out perception skill, summon summon summon)
Human Fighter1/Bard X (party face and EXTREME buffer)
Every single member could cover multiple roles (healer, battlefield control, blasting, melee, buffer) and did so extremely well.
My group just finished this AP and did very, very well with this mix:
Elven Wizard (lots of spellbooks to be had, so a wizard is a great fit)
Human Cleric (Fire/Healing domains, Empowered cure spells and Fireball!!)
Dwarven Rouge1/Ranger X (main tank, lots of giant-class enemies to max out the advantage of dwarven racial and ranger favored enemy abilities)
Half-Elven Druid (extremely maxed out perception skill, summon summon summon)
Human Fighter1/Bard X (party face and EXTREME buffer)
Every single member could cover multiple roles (healer, battlefield control, blasting, melee, buffer) and did so extremely well.
Coincidentally, my group is:
elvish wizard (conjuration)human cleric of Saranrae
dwarvish fighter
half-elf bard
They are about 40% through Book 6. They have done pretty well so far, few deaths (we use hero points.)
My group just finished this AP and did very, very well with this mix:
Elven Wizard (lots of spellbooks to be had, so a wizard is a great fit)
Human Cleric (Fire/Healing domains, Empowered cure spells and Fireball!!)
Dwarven Rouge1/Ranger X (main tank, lots of giant-class enemies to max out the advantage of dwarven racial and ranger favored enemy abilities)
Half-Elven Druid (extremely maxed out perception skill, summon summon summon)
Human Fighter1/Bard X (party face and EXTREME buffer)
Every single member could cover multiple roles (healer, battlefield control, blasting, melee, buffer) and did so extremely well.
Coincidentally, my group is:
elvish wizard (conjuration)
human cleric of Saranrae
dwarvish fighter
half-elf bardThey are about 40% through Book 6. They have done pretty well so far, few deaths (we use hero points.)
Heh heh, we use Breath of Life! and for the bard, Raise Dead/Resurrection!