Halfling cavalier: Order of the Paw vs Beast Riders. Why choosing the former?
In Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Halflings have a special specialisation for the Cavalier class: Cavalier of the Paw:
Cavaliers of the Order of the Paw pledge to defend halflings, halfling settlements, and other innocent folks by patrolling the wilderness and seeking out possible threats to both individuals and whole communities. These cavaliers hunt down potential danger with a ruthless efficiency and determination that non-halflings find surprising and even somewhat alarming."
In practice, playing this subclass, you have to choose wolf or dog as a mount while sacrificing Order selection, available to all other Cavaliers.
So cool, you can be Frodo riding on a Wolf, mounted from lvl 1 - all good. But then, you can do the same with other subclass: Beast Riders, which also allows selecting dog/wolf as "animal companion" (among others - velociraptor for anyone?), which in case of Halfling can be used as mount from start (to use animal as a mount it has to be one size "larger" than the rider - halflings are "small", dogs/wolves are "medium"). And on top of that, you can get a bunch of free feats from your Order.
So am I missing something here or Cavalier of the Paw is plain worse?
Solution 1:
The Cavalier of the Paw have 4 bonus abilities at level 1, 2, 8 and 15 and have Heavy Armor Proficiency, while Beast Rider only have Medium. The distribution of the various abilities reflect the ones of every other Order ( Special challenge effect at level 1, special abilities at 2, 8 and 15 ), so the difference between the Order of the Paw and Beast Rider is about choose you mount and order, or stick on the ones you get.
At level 1, Cavalier of the Paw gains a stronger Challenge. On top of the normal Challenge effect, Challenge gives your mount +1 Dodge AC if it's threatening the target of your Challenge, plus another +1 for every 4 level of Cavalier.
At level 2, Cavalier of the Paw gains Danger Ward. As a Standard Action you can give all your allies around 30 ft a buff which make them reroll the first failed save throw within a minute with a +4 bonus of Competence.
At level 8, Cavalier of the Paw gains Canine Ferocity. Your mount get a +4 bonus on overrun and bull rush maneuvers. On top of that, you can take a bonus Feat from the mount related ones.
At level 15, Cavalier of the Paw gains Giant Slayer. If the target of your Challenge is at least Large sized ( everything bigger than a normal human ) you get a bonus on your damage roll equal to half your Cavalier levels.
The abilities of the Cavalier of the Paw are probably stronger1 of the ones of the other orders, and this make Cavalier of the Paw a solid subclass and not a straight nerf of Beast Raider.
1 Wait, is this opinion based?! Not really. The challenge special ability of the Cavalier of the Paw is the best one if you want to make a nice dex-tank. since buffs the mount AC. The Giant Slayer is best one in terms of damage output, since nearly all bosses and stronger enemies are at least Large, you can abuse of the up-to-10 bonus damage on every attack. These two in particular are added to the Challenge normal effect, while other other may have stronger abilities but that can be used 1 round at day, like the Moment of Triumph of the Order of the Cockatrice