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There isn't a lot you can do immediately to mitigate the low strength. There are some things you can do, which I will list.
1) Take some barbarian levels. This gets you a +4 to str and con while raging.
2) Invest in fighter levels. Weapon focus/speciailization plus weapon training can offset your lower strength.
3)If you have casters have them cast buffs on you like bulls strength or buy potions of bulls stregnth. Later by a wand of it and let the casters use it on you.
4)Eventually you will be able to buy a belt of incredible strength and put your ability score increases into strength.
Most of these require gold and exp, so your best bet for now is doing everything you can to boost your attack bonus: flanking, charging, bless, etc. Alternatively, you could beg you GM to let you reroll.
If you're willing to use a finessable weapon then weapon finesse could be an option. It would cost you damage wise as you'd need to take a smaller weapon, and the lance isn't finessable.
Though if you also invest another feat into an exotic weapon then that would allow you to use a two handed weapon with your dex, either an elven curve blade or spiked chain.
I've never played a cavelier so I'm not sure if it would be worth going that route.
You could also consider carrying some throwing weapons around (throwing axes, tridents, etc), since you could use them in melee with your strength or throw them at range using your dex. That's a potential way to compensate for your lower strength, until you've managed to improve your strength in some way.
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You might want to take a look at Advanced Options: More Cavalier Orders from Super Genius Games.
One of the cavalier orders presented is the Order of the Trident: "Cavaliers belonging to this order frequently come from aquatic races such as sea elves, tritons, merfolk, locathah, and sahuagin. Cavaliers of the trident are dedicated to the pursuit of various goals pertaining to the sea. However, like the sea, those goals can be wildly different and ever changing. Some cavaliers of the trident nobly dedicate themselves to protecting the creatures of the sea while others selfishly work to plunder and exploit the sea’s vast resources."
Also included are a number of aquatic mount stats such as dolphins, whales, sharks, giant morays, manta rays and even 2 kinds of dinosaurs.
Not sure if this will help the OP since the game has started already, but it's still worth checking out :)
What did you roll and what are your stats?
The merfolk are a cool race, but they unfortunately dont get a strength bonus, which is a problem for a combat oriented character. Unlike 4E the choices you make can make a very significant difference in your capabilities. Merfolk really dont get much that lend them towards being cavaliers. That is going to be something you will have to overcome with other choices you make. But its important for you to understand that you are sort of playing from behind right from the start, even before your mediocre die rolls.
The most obvious? Feats, things like weapon focus can up your to hit, charging gives you another +2 to hit. You also have the tactician ability, cranting you a teamwork feat and the ability to grant it to your allies. Take outflank.
Charging gives yous a +2 bonus. If you can charge in a way that gives you flanking, with outflank, thats +4, weapon focus gives another +1. Thats a total of +7 to hit right there., and thats before any order abilties to go with challenge. Remember also that when mounted if you attack a creature smaller then your mount, you get an additional +1 bonus for attacking from higher ground.
That +4 is now a +12.
I don't think Merfolk is that bad a class for Cavalier looking at the mechanics. The lack of strength is a problem - but not every character race has a +2 to strength anyway.
Its not about just the strength. Its about the fact that very little in the race lends itself to cavalier. The natural armor bonus is helpful, thats about it. Other race/class combinations mesh far better (think Elven wizard or halfling rogue). When compared to that kind of combination, you will be at a disadvantage. Thats what I mean by 'playing from behind'.
The thing with Cavalier is that it's a mounted class that, due to the nature of it challenging foes and taking penalties while doing so, needs decent AC. It's very hard to get decent AC AND Ride stat, and Merfolk are one of the few ways of doing that due to the natural armour and +2 Dex. I was under the impression that Cavalier was a decent Tanky class. The way I ended up doing it is to give myself decent Dex (14), medium armour(armoured jacket), but with a Heavy Shield(so I can take off the shield when I favour skills over AC).
Thats not a bad approach, but that additional dexterity will cost you in offense eventually.
I wanted to play a Merfolk and I needed some way of getting about on land. I wanted the character to be technically disabled compared to the other characters, but still equal in combat, and to do that she needed to be a class with a good ride.
If all you want is a merfolk with a mount i'd go oracle with the bonded mount mystery personally.
I forgot about the height advantage. The GM seemed to be saying Charging was a +1 bonus though. Cavalier seem to have a few good options for gaining. Since the mount is a Crab though, I'm not sure how large that's realistically going to be, Crabs don't tend to be all that tall. I need to think of how she's reined into the crab realistically too.
In order for a merfolk to be a mount for a merfolk it MUST be large. If its large, and you are mounted on it, you get the +1 bonus against things medium and smaller. And your gm is wrong about charging, its +2 to attack.
Here are my stats:
STR 14 0 14 +2
DEX 12 +2 14 +2
CON 13 +2 15 +2
INT 12 0 12 +1
WIS 11 0 11 0
CHA 12 +2 14 +2To be fair that's pretty awesomely balanced. It just means I sort of suck at hitting things.
Balanced isnt always a good thing, and sucking at hitting things is a problem when that is essentially your primary function as a martial character.
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Well the thing is that this is an RP heavy campaign and a lot of the action isn't in traditional encounters, so it might be a good place to have a balanced character.
The GM seems to think my character works pretty well. With all the situational bonuses I'm likely to be hitting more than some of the other characters. Pulling off a character that both has decent dex *and* AC is hard too, but this character has it, which opens up lots of options for me(as well as giving me a slightly better ride stat, important for cavalier).
It sounds like you don't have much of a problem then. If the campaign favors more of roleplaying and social encounters, then you should be fine. Make the most use of your mount and teamwork feats. It should be attacking often as well as you. As long as the other PC's do well in combat and you work together, you should be fine. In 3.0, I played the main martial/tankinsh guy in a campaign as a fighter/monk that eventually went into the weapon master PrC. Teamwork is what made it work. The sorcerer would buff me with mage armor, cat's grace (which lasted an hour a level in 3.0) in the morning and haste during combat. That way, I had a great AC without armor or much equipment (our DM was pretty stingy with magic items). Of course, if you want some more cheesy ways to boost str, you could go alchemist for a str boosting mutagen or sorcerer levels (draconic bloodline) for the dragon disciple PrC which gives free str boosts, and them on into eldritch knight.
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I am not totally up on the mounted combat rules. I believe most of the time, your mount will use it's move action to move you, and you can both attack. I would try to charge as often as possible. I am pretty sure you may need to make ride checks to attack in combat, and the mounted combat feat helps this. Once again, this is not something I am really familiar with. I would read and reread the rules for mounted combat and the rules for cavalier mounts.