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So I am part of a new party that is being built. We have a pack lord druid, a gunslinger, an evoker, a paladin, and a yet to be named. Would it be better to have wolves or lions running about? I understand the lion has pounce, grab all that good stuff later, but wolves tripping people is just tempting. Thought?
i'd say it would depend upon what "flavor" fits the best. a more grassy or savannah type terrain, lions would fit better. Temperate or even colder climes, wolves.
Pounce, Grab, and all that stuff are vastly superior to wolves tripping.
Your post makes me think you're the pack lord, though, which means I have to ask:
Why? Do you intend to take Boon Companion multiple times? Otherwise, your pets are going to lag very far behind in effectiveness.
Well, wolves do have a couple of advantages at later levels, but I am not sure if that would help in an AP.
Once you start getting past level 8, it can be cheaper to use a wolf rather than a lion. Since they have only 1 natural attack, you can just cast a greater magical fang with full enhancement bonus and have it last all day. And after level 10, they are not in want for damage, since multiattack grants them an extra attack at their full BAB-5. Again, a single attack aids them since it does 1.5 strength damage, so they can be roughly on par with raw dpr when doing full attacks. Add in strong jaw, only having to use one improved natural attack feat...and maybe vital attack? Overall, you can make an very effective wolf at later levels. But again, a lion might give more immediate advantages.
WINTER IS COMING! Stark Dire Wolves for the win. I'd go with thematics on this one and leave your enemies on their bums while you get AoOs on them as they try to get up.
Also if keeping with thematic correctness, mountain lions, See Cat, Leopard(http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/cat.html#_cat-leopard)
for a more winter/cold climate animals if you are dead set on a lion.
Thematically the wolves might make more sense, but the biggest tigers are Siberian tigers, so having big cats in cold climates could make sense though they'd be tigers instead.
Mechanically speaking the cats would probably be superior in most ways, but while the arctic Druid might be mechanically better off wildshaping into a hippo behemoth he probably shouldn't from a thematic standpoint. If you're playing the wolves I'd suggest boosting their Int to 3 and picking up Spring Attack plus Outflank. Use Spring Attack to get into flanking positions. A menacing amulet of mighty fists can then help boost your attack bonus high enough to use Power Attack (at a 3 to 1 bonus) and still hit the CMD to trip foes.
Actually, I don't see anything in the Pack Lord archetype which says all the companions have to be of the same type, so you could have a wolf and a tiger if you wanted to. The problem is that they'll really start lagging behind in levels after a while. If you want to keep one companion at full power the other will never advance past 8th level. I'd consider making that companion something with high Dex and the Bodyguard feat, possibly a mount so you could protect it with Mounted Combat.
If you rack up the +8 attack bonus from the flanking stuff I mentioned above and then get another +4 from trip I guess that even the 8th level companion could really tear into enemies as the right times though even at high levels. Maybe the PC could be a gnome who rides around on a snow leopard and has a pet dire wolf.