creating a Wereshark and Lycanthropes in general

[Jgosse]

I had posted recently about vampire sailors but have thought to go with Lycan instead.
So I have some questions about the Lycan and the Lycan Cr.

CR for a lycan is HD dependent so a medium shark in the MM1 has 3 HD, that puts it in the CR 3 range 3-5. so now to make the most of this could I just bump the base animal up to 5 HD?

Also if I leave it at 3 HD the bonuses They get just seem low so I was wondering if Just adding the CR 2 would be ok instead of CR 3.

I am also wondering if there are any other aquatic Animals I might be able to use with 2 natural HD maybe Octopus or something. The base humanoid will be a 6th level cleric and a bunch of human warriors and experts. The party is 5th level (mostly) a orc barbarian Fighter, a human ranger barbarian, a human sorcerer warlock, a dwarf monk, a Goliath Favored Soul and a Aasimar druid. All LAs have been bought off.

[Omegas]

The higher the HD the higher the ECL and beast HD bite. Honestly you want the most bang for you buck so lower HDs with high abilites are better. Plus there is a whole chapter about lycans that boils down to the animal HD do not receive the Con bonus to HP. Generally when making lycans you want to keep in the same size category unless you want to dump all equipment every time you change.

[Jgosse]

The higher the HD the higher the ECL and beast HD bite. Honestly you want the most bang for you buck so lower HDs with high abilites are better. Plus there is a whole chapter about lycans that boils down to the animal HD do not receive the Con bonus to HP. Generally when making lycans you want to keep in the same size category unless you want to dump all equipment every time you change.

Ok so is there an aquatic 1 or 2 HD animal with high ability scores and medium size?

[Eldan]

The Octopus is small, but it has a +6 dex, which is quite nice. You also gain ink cloud and jet (200 ft. speed!), neither of which say they have to be used underwater.

A porpoise has 2HD and is medium and gives you blindsight. It doesn't count as aquatic, though, it can only hold it's breath for a long time. +6 dex, +2 con, 80 ft. swim speed.

[Jgosse]

The Octopus is small, but it has a +6 dex, which is quite nice. You also gain ink cloud and jet (200 ft. speed!), neither of which say they have to be used underwater.

A porpoise has 2HD and is medium and gives you blindsight. It doesn't count as aquatic, though, it can only hold it's breath for a long time. +6 dex, +2 con, 80 ft. swim speed.

The Porpoise would be close enough it is still a sea creature.
I just question the idea of Porpoise Pirates?

[Jgosse]

I just found the Seawolf in Stormwrack and may just use that. it seems to fit what I want well enough.

[Jgosse]

I just found the Seawolf in Stormwrack and may just use that. it seems to fit what I want well enough.

On closer inspection the seawolf is not such a good option as it is not a template and it replaces everything you have including class levels.

[Eldan]

The Porpoise would be close enough it is still a sea creature.
I just question the idea of Porpoise Pirates?

Why not Porpoises? I mean, I'm not sure about Porpoises, but Dolphins, at least, are vicious bastards. To everything.