While searching for the origin of the quote by Omego Metroid (It is Spoiler Remastered Dislikes comment #374), my search also found a thread from 2 years ago discussing character strengths that has a better selection of roles: Character Optimization in Pathfinder 2e: Areas of Expertise. Frontliner/Tank, Skillmonkey, Support, and Nuker/Mage (I presume Unplaced/Unknown is not a role) are so old fashioned.
Current party is Dual of Investigator/Inventor, Sorcerer with FA, Rogue having locked dedication, and maestro Bard.
I cannot analyze that party because I don't understand the description. What does "FA" mean? Searching Archives of Nethys for "locked" gave me only "Maze of Locked Doors." Is a dual of Investigator and Inventor a gestalt with full abilities of both classes, or some kind of compromise? Maestro bard is clear, but a bard could be built as a diplomat, a weapon combatant, or a spellcaster.
In writing a fan fiction, the author does not need a well-balanced party ready for the most common obstacles in tabletop campaigns. For example, in The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R. Tolkien the fellowship cannot cross the Misty Mountains due to heavy snow, so they instead go through the Mines of Moria. The weakness of the party against a terrain hazard unrelated to the story theme led them instead to creature hazards--the goblins and balrog of Moria--that were representative of the evil forces ahead of them in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Gaps in the party's expertise are plot tools.
Yeah, you don't need to worry about party composition for a story. Just write what feels right.
If you want to have some connected mechanics, specifically PF2 mechanics, simply have your heroes be 1 to 2 levels ahead of the enemies they would face (so "average" enemies would be 2 level behind and nemesis of the party would be the same level). The level difference and the mechanics of PF2 will mean that the party can do non-optimized things and not have all the "roles" covered and still have a high chance of success.
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So if you read some of the better Pathfinder and AD&D professional stories, they do not exactly match the mechanics used in the game at the time. They will mention by name some magic items, but they never say exact class and level of the characters. Assuming you aren’t using the isekai trope of a status screen, there is no need to even mention class or archetypes. Instead describe what they do.
One of the complaints often (rightly in my mind) leveled at bad fantasy fiction is that you can hear the dice rattle. In that sort of fiction, it is as if someone was just keeping a log of the game. Try not to do that.
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So if you read some of the better Pathfinder and AD&D professional stories, they do not exactly match the mechanics used in the game at the time. They will mention by name some magic items, but they never say exact class and level of the characters. Assuming you aren’t using the isekai trope of a status screen, there is no need to even mention class or archetypes. Instead describe what they do.
One of the complaints often (rightly in my mind) leveled at bad fantasy fiction is that you can hear the dice rattle. In that sort of fiction, it is as if someone was just keeping a log of the game. Try not to do that.
I would nuance this a bit.
In France, we had comics based on a PC's adventures (from the dawn of DnD : the author is François Marcela-Froideval). I enjoyed the first books because the story was fun AND I could recognize DnD things and tropes. The latter books were much more focused on the main character and his world and let most of the DnDisms fall by the wayside. As a result, they were less interesting to me. Because it was still only a PC's adventures but without the small things to which I could relate as a player.
The party has a smart Investigator/Inventor, a charismatic Sorcerer with a clever pet, a sneaky Rogue, and a curious Bard. That sounds good material for an investigative campaign. Oops, I put on my gamemater hat when analyzing the party and judged which adventures would suit the party rather than how the party can handle pre-existing adventures. I once had a party that was great at gathering information and learning secrets in a combat-heavy Rise of the Runelords campaign, so I rewrote it so that they could learn the weaknesses of their enemies before battling them. Such adjustments became a habit.
For combat, the party seems short on hit points. Bard, Inventor, Investigator, and Rogue recieve 8+CON hp per level. Sorcerer receives 6+CON hp per level. They lack a character with 10+CON hp per level and high AC to resist the damage from a high-damage opponent. Good teamwork can make up for that, such as the Rogue stepping up as the front line when the Inventor/Investigator has to retreat due to accumulated damage.
My PF1 Iron Gods party tag-teamed like that. They were a bloodrager, fighter, gunslinger, magus, and skald, so they had no low-hit-point teammates to protect. Thus, they skirmished, seldom standing still and soaking up damage. However, in one encounter against a hallway of robots, the magus took the lead because he used his Arcane Pool to get critical hits that could cut through the robots' hardness. He used Mirror Image to protect himself from their counterattacks. When those images ran out he retreated, and the bloodrager and fighter took the lead while the skald healed up the magus. (The gunslinger was a low-damage build that used a grappling gun for battlefield control, so he could not damage the robots.) I can see the Inventor/Investigator taking the lead, and then the Bard and Rogue step up to let them recover.
For fiction, Laclale♪'s party will want fast fights, because they would get pummeled in a long fight.
Yeah, you don't need to worry about party composition for a story. Just write what feels right.
I am in agreement with Claxon, so I don't see the reason behind a swap unless Laclale♪ wants different characters in the story.
I wrote a fictional story about my characters back in February 2017, made up entirely rather than my usual chronicle about their adventures on the tabletop. My players had derailed the adventure in Palace of Fallen Stars in my Iron Gods campaign and were spending a lot more time in the streets of Starfall instead of fighting foes in the palace or the Technic League headquarters (Inconspicuous PCs Unmotivated in Palace of Fallen Stars). Thus, I wrote a story as an introduction to the common people of Starfall.
In the smallest, cheapest room of the Laughing Whitefish Inn, the dwarven gadgeteer Boffin made a practical suggestion, "Let's go out to drink."
Her roommate Val Baine stretched her legs as she sat on her bed. "Downstairs to the tavern?"
"Further out. Out to a dwarven tavern. We'll find some serious ale and serious talk."
Their friend Emelia Otterbie back in their hometown Torch had recommended the Laughing Whitefish Inn, but Emelia was rich. Boffin and Val were rich, too, but their money came from recently delving into forbidden ruins full of alien technology. The monopolistic Technic League arrested people like them. Now they were in Starfall, capital city of Numeria and the headquarters of the Technic League. They needed to act like regular small-town folk in the big city for business.
Still, a little fun was okay.
Val stood up in agreement, "It's a plan." She turned to her familiar, a cat-sized clockwork dragon, "Sparky, you have to stay. My spells can't disguise you long enough." Then she addressed Boffin, "Should we ask Kheld or Juran? I don't think Quincy drinks."
"We're pretending to barely know them. Met them on the caravan here, et cetera," Boffin reminded. "This is just us young ladies out on the town."
Their room was above the stables. Out on the terrace the air spelled of horses and manure, yet the inn's staff always swept the ground below clean. Val vaulted over the railing and floated gently down, her long coat and blonde hair swirling.
Boffin climbed over the railing and dropped down. Her own long coat swirled naturally, giving no clue of the gadgets hidden in a portable hole in its lining. Her glare at Val was a silent rebuke for showing off.
"Feather Fall," Val quipped, loudly enough for a stable hand to glance at them. Boffin knew that Val had not cast that spell. The human's unseen mutant heritage granted her mastery of air and lightning. She floated at will.
"Hey," Boffin hollered to the stable hand. "Where's a taphouse with real dwarven ale?"
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The story had no balanced combats. It was meeting people, some friendly and some arrogant. Also, drinking, eating, and talking. Why make up an exciting conflict for fiction when I could instead roleplay it with my players?