Suppose you're a rogue or a bard. A magus or an investigator. You've got light armor, a d8 hit die, and some solid melee damage potential. In other words, you're a bit of a glass cannon. How do you go in for the stabs without receiving them in turn?
We tend not to talk about basic strategy too often, but I find myself with a table full of low-level squishy melee PCs, and I'd like to give them solid advice. Is the answer purely "let the big guy go first?" Is it more about spending the first round buffing? How do you ply the skirmisher's trade at low level without getting your face gnawed off by a dire rat?
In other words, if you happen to be a glass cannon, how do you contribute without shattering?
From my experience, the basic premise is fairly inaccurate. 'Skirmish' fighters as you call them tend to have comparable AC to most others since their DEX usually makes up for the armor points that they are missing and many have other means of defenses that more martial characters lack. The real question on focusing on AC or not is usually to use a shield or not use a shield, but that is a question for most of the heavy armor types just as much as it is for most skirmishers.
The difference between a d8 and a d10 isn't all that huge in terms of hit points either. Of course if you don't invest in any CON that can make quite a difference, but if you do that with a melee character it is, in my opinion, just a bad build, not a problem with certain types of classes. Sure some times the few points of difference will matter, and you might have to go defensive or withdraw if you get into trouble, but most of the time having 10 or 11 HP vs having 13 or 14 isn't going to be all that significant.
In Pathfinder the skirmishers you mention are generally quite capable of surviving at low levels just fine. And at low levels, where a single hit is probably going to down a foe, doing unto them before they can do unto you is a quite viable strategy.
Of course there are tons of other good tactical rules out there that apply to a party as a whole, and how to implement them varies from party to party (having control, support and strikers each doing their jobs is a big one) but they are general and group focused, not 'glass cannons should fight like this' sort of things.
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From my experience, the basic premise is fairly inaccurate. 'Skirmish' fighters as you call them tend to have comparable AC to most others since their DEX usually makes up for the armor points that they are missing and many have other means of defenses that more martial characters lack. The real question on focusing on AC or not is usually to use a shield or not use a shield, but that is a question for most of the heavy armor types just as much as it is for most skirmishers.
True, a high-Dex character can manage a high AC. However, I remember a contributing factor from my Rise of the Rulelords campaign. The rogue wanted a flank for his sneak attacks. The fighter was inexperienced and could not plan a good position opposite her for a flank, so the rogue moved into the resulting bad position right behind the enemy's front line. If the enemy had a second line, they chose to beat on the rogue rather than move forward. The weakness of positioning for sneak attack is that the position is not good for defense. Look at the rogue in the comic--she is right out in the open for the dragon to attack.
Later, the fighter died in a heroic self-sacrifice, the fighter's player switched to a spellcasting druid, and fortunately, another player joined to play a battle oracle. However, the battle oracle's first action was always to cast a buff spell. We also soon gained a second rogue. The two rogues would advance forward for high-initiative sneak attacks on the first turn and flanking for each other on the second turn. They became the main targets during those two turns, so the rogues took enough damage that they retreated. Fortunately, the battle oracle was well-buffed by then and she stepped forward as an unstoppable fighting machine. It worked.
Years later, in my Iron Gods campaign, I had an entire party of skirmishers. They were half-elf magus, strix skald, dwarf gunslinger, human bloodrager, and human fighter/investigator. No-one had low AC. No-one needed to be protected by a stationary meat shield. The fighter preferred a glaive. The skald and bloodrager preferred to charge (Death from Above feat for the flying skald). Everyone except the fighter had a ranged attack immediately available, such as a spell or firearm. The entire party kept in motion, keeping away from the counterattacks of their less mobile enemies. I learned a lot about skirmishing from that campaign.
The key to skirmishing is moving away from the counterattacks. Spring Attack is a classic. A 5-foot-step after a raging bloodrager commandeers the attention of one's opponent is often enough. A little battlefield control from the skald or the gunslinger with a grapple gun goes a long way. And as Name Violation and the caption on the comic pointed out, a dead opponent makes no counterattacks. Freely switching between ranged and melee attacks based on opportunity increases the skirmishing damage. The party does damage continuously and their opponent doesn't. That gives them the advantage.
Skirmishers are tricky to work in Pathfinder because its tough to move swiftly in and out of combat. Most opponents can keep up with the PCs, and thanks to attacks of opportunity once combat has been entered it usually ends up grinding to a halt. The best results are Monks or Horsemen with Spring Attack/Shot on the Run/Ride By Attack who can either go in/out or break past the enemy without getting mauled/tripped.
Skirmishers are tricky to work in Pathfinder because its tough to move swiftly in and out of combat. Most opponents can keep up with the PCs, and thanks to attacks of opportunity once combat has been entered it usually ends up grinding to a halt. The best results are Monks or Horsemen with Spring Attack/Shot on the Run/Ride By Attack who can either go in/out or break past the enemy without getting mauled/tripped.
Figure out a wording to let the vital strike chain work with feats like spring attack/shot on the run and skirmishing's stock will go way up.
Oh I just want to remind people, skirmishing =/= high burst assault. By definition, a skirmish is: irregular, indesisive, and small. It's not so much a tactic and more of an event in the war/pre-battle stages.
In war, a skirmish is light, relatively indecisive combat. It serves to harass the enemy rather than defeat them.
That does not work in Pathfinder. Skirmish with an enemy force, and the next day both sides will be back to normal. Kill 5 soldiers in an army of 100, and it will be back to the full 100 again if the GM is not keeping detailed records.
We still use the word "skirmisher" in Pathfinder. It means the character who engages with the enemy in light, relatively indecisive combat. The skirmisher harasses the enemy, often to keep the heavy hitters from being overwhelmed until the heavy hitters finish with their current opponents and take on the enemies softened up by the skirmisher. Any character who intends to retreat from combat before his first opponent is dead or unconscious is a skirmisher, even if that retreat is the backstep of a Spring Attack or stepping behind a tree to reload a crossbow.
Likewise, dropping one minion at a time, when the minions are a threat only in large numbers, is like retreating from all counterattacks and counts as skirmishing. I viewed Name Violation's high-burst damage as that, but perhaps I was mistaken.
"Skirmisher" can also mean a character who fights in melee but is not strong at it. The bard steps up to the front line because that line needs another body to protect the squishy wizard behind the line.
The Handbook for Heroes Sneak Attack comic is far from skirmishing or guerrilla warfare. The rogue Thief is managing a sneak attack while being blatantly exposed and vulnerable. Colin's text calls her a "glass cannon" and elaborates, "Rogues and bards and magi can make some crazy cool characters, but you’ve got to remember: if you’re built like a skirmisher, you need to skirmish."
Also other good tactic is to use cover, the terrain, and weather (weather prediction spell can be useful at times). There is no reason why you have to be in the middle of the road when you can hide in the forest, for example.
Deception can also work, for example: laying traps, replacing bullets for blanks (or the classic replace food for horrible things), and using make shift areas (illusions for the win).
If this sounds like guerrilla tactics, it's because guerrilla tactics are skirmishing tactics vs a larger army.
The entire party has to use the guerrilla tactics, or the one fellow in clanky armor standing in the middle of the road becomes the obvious target. (Which might make a good future Handbook for Heroes comic--or is there one like that already?)
I played an elf cleric archer in a long-running D&D game where the entire party would sneak through the dungeon. My cleric managed the Move Silently checks due to the high Dexterity I gave him for the archery. We pooled our cash and bought Boots of Elven Kind for the fighter. Even that party switched to frontline-protects-the-squishies tactics when combat began.
The Iron Gods party was different. No particular use of cover, because battlefield control was more flexible. The use of terrain was that the strix could fly. Pre-combat sabotage did not fit the circumstances until the 5th and 6th modules. Nevertheless, the tactics were constant harassment of the enemy rather than stationary frontline combat. If the enemy converged on the least mobile party members--the dwarf gunslinger and the human fighter--then they were attacking the two people with the best AC. If the enemy retreated from the harassment, then perhaps the skald could negotiate a truce.
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The trickiest part for GMing with PCs that are in to trying to be melee skirmishers is that the nature of dungeons and battlefield set up can be extremely limiting for characters wanting to invest resources in being fast enough to hit and run from combat. How much resources are the party putting into getting the upperhand/choosing where the fight takes place?
The average party tends to walk into rooms and then react to what they see there. Skirmishing is nearly impossible in this scenario, or quickly turns into the rogue going first, moving in too far to get off an early sneak attack and then getting overwhelmed. But if they don't move in first, then the enemy clogs the choke point before the fighter can move the front line into a more advantageous position and the skirmisher is trapped in the back line feeling useless, especially if they don't have the feat support to make ranged attacks past allies feasible. Mobility in PF is far more than your movement speed, especially in a crowded dungeon.
Casting becomes the easiest way to accomplish this, especially beyond 4th level, even if it is not one character doing both the casting and the skirmishing. Use Magic Device can function as a work around, but it burns through character resources, which can be fine, but might frustrate the rest of the party if they were built around wanting to save every coin to improve their big six items as fast as possible.
Basically, skirmishing pretty much requires cooperation of party members and is a great way to get a group working together and feeling like a team when a plan works out and everyone plays their part, but will quickly start to have characters drop when they don't include recon and emergency withdrawl factored in to their general combat strategies.
I also strongly agree with and echo many posters above that point out that the real tactics of combat skirmishing are problematic when trying to apply directly to a fantasy setting where injuries can be healed almost instantly and resources recovered much more quickly than in real life. Magic changes both the goal of skirmishing and the way it is countered.
The key to skirmishing is moving away from the counterattacks. Spring Attack is a classic. A 5-foot-step after a raging bloodrager commandeers the attention of one's opponent is often enough.It's my buddy's first character, and she's running a halfling investigator with a longspear and a Con of 10. I'm trying to help her survive long enough to overcome the build's inherent weaknesses, and something as simple as this might just help her out. Cheers!