[Drothmal]

Well hello there, thank you for dropping by

Backstory that doesn't involve the crunch questions

Spoiler

About 10 years ago, me and my high school group had to part ways right as our 3 year old campaign was reaching its climax as the heroes were about to take the fight to the BBEG in its own domain in order to prevent him from opening a gate directly to Hell.

The campaign was interrupted as the group ended up in four different time zones in 3 different countries.

Now, with the marvels of the internet, we are about to resume the campaign online and we have chosen to convert all the material from 3.5 to PF. But as you all might now, this is not always an easy task. Even more so since 3.5 had more sources and a lot of them were slightly... broken (which was in part what led me to making a weretiger) and with the years I have dialed down on the power gaming -personal choice, there is nothing wrong if that is your cup of tea-.

Bottom line, I am trying to convert my character to PF and I have some questions that I am trying to resolve in order to avoid being too overpowered

My 3.5 character (as best as I can remember)

Spoiler

Human with natural lychantrope weretiger template (CR+4 reduced to +2 or +3 with buyback)
Barbarian 1/Fighter 14

Fighting Style: TWF with oversized longswords (had all the TWF tree for off hand attacks), which he proceeded to use to deal tons of damage with a hasted weapon in each hand (not sure if this was valid or a houserule, but that's how it worked)

Stats: Basically, when raging and hybrid form, the chump got to 42-44STR (17 base + 12 weretiger + 2 Feat + 3 lvl + 6 belt + 4 rage)
- He had a TON of HP (something around 26 CON while raging, the racial HD and a homebrewed version of toghness that is the same as the PF version)

Defense: Basically banked on the DR/silver against things with natural attacks. Some feats to increase AC thanks to TWF. Had also looted an armor that gave fast healing 1, so he started fights at full HP

Feats: Monkey grip, TWF tree, savage species feat that allowed for swift action transformation, toughness, some AC boosts (natural armor, dodge, etc)

Questions
1) How does the CR adjustment of the lychantrope template work on PF?

I've read the pfsrd and the "Same as base creature or base animal (whichever is higher) +1" seems too good to be true, to be honest.

For a 1 level investment, I am getting some stat bumps (smaller than before, which is only reasonable, but still...), DR 10/silver, +2 natural AC, large size, pounce (see question 2), scent, low light vision, etc

This seems to much... So I would like to check that I am not doing something wrong

1-a) Does being Large in hybrid form give you extra reach?
1-b) Does being Large in hybrid form give you extra STR?
1-c) Is the pfsrd correct on the 23 STR score of the weretiger example? Tiger base STR is 23, so the hybrid form should be at least 25 (23+2)

2) How does the weretiger's pounce interact with manufactured weapons? Is it valid just to charge and unleash all the TWF combo?

3) What would be a good build for a TWF weretiger? (assume ECL 18, don't know the point buy but at least 25)

Right now I'm thinking

Spoiler

Weretiger /barbarian (Titan Mauler) 6/Fighter (TWF) 11
Rage powers: Reckless abandon, witch hunter, spell sunder
Feats: Toughness, TWF, ITWF, GTWF, Dual slice, Two weapon Rend, Weapon focus, weapon specialization, improved Crit

3-a) Is Titan Mauler a good option? I know that usually going for bigger weapons is sub optimal, but in this case he would be dual wielding Large Greatswords (Which I think do 3d6 damage)

Can he use even larger weapons in only one hand?

3-b) Is TWF archetype the best option? I believe so, but I'm not sure if there are other options

3-c) Any other must have feats/rage powers?


Thanks for reading! And thank you for any helpful comments you can provide!

Short disclaimers

Spoiler

-No, it doesn't need to be a weretiger. I have offered the DM the posibility of just refluffing a human, but he has already planned for fairly powered encounters
- Other party members are a wizard (evocation mostly, will probably move to battlefield control) and a two handed fighter. We have a hired NPC that provides healing
- This PC has no spellcasting whatsoever