Encounter Design / Check my party

[tzar1990]

So, I'm running a Pathfinder game over skype in the next few weeks, and my party should be coming together for their first full session (as opposed to one-on-one intro sessions) later this week. While I'm fairly confident in my worldbuilding, broad-strokes plot, and so on, I am a bit dubious about my ability to create challenging, fun encounters that everyone can contribute to.

My party is as follows:

Goblin Alchemist (mindchemist archetype)
Vanara Ranger (archery-specced)
Half-Orc Paladin (melee)
Drakken (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/3rd-party-races/little-red-goblin-races#TOC-Drakken) Barbarian 2 (mad dog)/Rogue 1
Human Olympian (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=13322347&postcount=11) (grapple focused)
Fetchling Bard (negotiator archetype, not built for combat - will likely stand back and cast spells when fighting)


Anyone have any tips for designing encounters for this type of party? Additionally, do you guys spot any strengths / weaknesses beyond the immediately obvious that I should keep an eye out for, to avoid sending accidentally trivial or overly lethal encounters at them?

Any help is appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[Spore]

Flight: They lack a full caster with Flight. Fly extracts and a Flight evolution are the only ways to get to hit flying enemies and flying casters. And Archery. So consider the ability to fly a large problem for them. Monitor the Alchemist closely as they have a few ways to deal with that. Tanglefoot Bombs are a way to bring enemies down. Fly plus Infusion Discovery allows people to fly (although he will never have enough extracts/day to let all of them fly).
Grappler: You grappler should take the Size Control Olympian Talent asap or else he cannot grapple larger enemies. Make sure he knows that or you as DM say: Screw it, with the penalties given for size a medium sized grappler is cursed enough. Let him have a try.
Strong melee rows: You have a grappler, a rider and a "tank" with basic selfhealing. Anything weak to melee will die. But before that it will be maimed humiliated and torn apart. A handfull of well positioned archers, a smart wizard/druid/cleric will ruin their day. Make sure that if you surprise them have those casters gloat for a bit to give them room to breathe. This makes the death scream of: I underestimated YOOOOOOOOOOUU.... all the more satisfying.
Sturdy ranged characters: Threaten the ranged characters and the bard once in a while. They have likely enough HP to survive a few rounds but this introduces the element of tactics to the whole group.

Now for the singular characters:
Mindchemist: He will remember stuff, like really good. His knowledge rolls are through the roof, his bomb DCs are dangerous and he has the best casting list in the whole group. If well played he is the most useful in the group. He can prepare every extract in his book given a free slot and 1 minute of field work.
Ranger: Classical ranger. Track, Survival, Perception are the strong skills. Ranged combat is a very steady damage output and easily disrupted by damage reduction. Consider pointing him to a feat that let's all his attacks/round count towards DR in total.
Paladin: Yeah, well you can crank your demon/undead/evil outsider encounter level up very high. Expect him to 1 on 1 that thing though. For roleplaying: If you know the player you will know if he is an annoying paladin, a liberal one or how he's playing. The most problems will surface in deciding what to do if the group is nongood/chaotic in mind.
Barbarian/Rogue: This one is odd. It may just be a class combo that exactly knows what it's doing. Or someone just mashed two classes together that seemed fitting for their concept. Investigate further.
Olympian: Well you have to have some epic grapple targets. Be it a Chimera, any mythological beast goes. Powerful but medium sized is their terrain. They should even kill casters in grapple (but see above, flight is required if you want your caster not to be in a headlock after two rounds).
Fetchling Bard: The social encounters are likely about him and the Paladin. Watch closely who talks the most and while having social roleplay once in a while it's not fun when half the group sits there silent. Maybe try to moderate the social encounter giving everyone a chance to play.