What level is your character?
My druid in the campaign I'm in currently is taking a couple levels dip in unarmed fighter to eventually be able to use martial fighting styles while in beast form.
go with augment summoning, and get buffs to make your cat(tiger) better.
Grappling in wild shape (level 6) is better than the Improved Grapple feat chain as your attacks will allow a free grapple check after you successfully hit rather than doing a grapple combat maneuver like a fighter which doesn't do any immediate damage. Also, your animal form grapples will be at +4
Don't expect to be able to do too much at level 3 though. Buff you allies / pet and use a long spear in combqt .
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My reasoning for the sight issue comes from this
An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see beyond the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks.
While specifying incorporeal creatures, in many ways an earth elemental is in the same position if attacking from inside an object. So you could attack with cover but not improved cover with no concealment or from total cover with 50% miss chance. Pick up blindfight and cave domain for tremorsense and move and fight in the walls.
PS - PFS - I am so doing that now that I think of it. I only have 3 PFS druids right now, I definitelly need another one.
If you decide to keep the animal companion, invest in some barding. I had magical barding on my AC before I had magical armor on my druid. If you can afford it, get a rod of lesser metamagic: extend so that your buff spells last twice as long. Keep a cure spell in your prepared spells in case you have to heal your AC in combat, but that should be a last resort. Utilize spells like "flaming sphere" or "entangle" to manage the battlefield to keep your AC from having to fight half a dozen enemies at once, and when possible summon in some flanking buddies for him.
Remember, a constitution buff will give your AC a hit point boost as well.
I'm actually not that big of a fan of power attack. If you are having to put your AC in the front line, I'm hoping that's because the rest of your party is focused on ranged or spellcasting, and they should be taking out the enemy, your AC just needs to keep the enemy engaged so that the rest of the party (including your druid) can take them out.
My druid was an archer druid, we had an archer ranger and a sorcerer as well, so most fights were over pretty quickly. I wouldn't have wanted my AC to be the big gun anyway, I preferred allowing the other PCs to shine. Tripping is also a nice option in that situation. If your party can't turn the battle into a killing field, and you don't have other front line melee options, you've got bigger problems.
I thought you were kind of planning on Monk1/DruidX. The bonus feats from the Monk level would let you master grappling without giving up much summoning. I've played such a build and can vouch that it works well.
The Saurian Shaman sounds like a mechanically solid choice for a Druid archetype though I prefer Lion Shaman myself. The big cat companion is great, the dire tiger wildshape works fine, and cats are some of the best summons. With the ability to apply the young, advanced, and giant templates you’ll have felines on every Summon Nature’s Ally list from II to VIII. Speaking of summoning, you might want to be cautious of Superior Summons depending on your group's style of play since clogging up the table to hordes of summoned creatures sometimes isn't appreciated. One big summon can usually get the job done.
Anyhow, if you're interested in either a pouncing grab-cat build or a heavy hitter dino build let me know and I'll post them. The dino build is a probably single classed Druid who hides behind summoned creatures to use reach attacks from relative safety. I haven't actually played the latter, but I'd guess it would work pretty well.
I’d use a human for both of these to get an extra feat. At higher levels you’ll be wildshaped a lot anyhow. I guess you could always say your PC is a midget. Anyhow...
Saurian Shaman
1 Spell Focus (Conjuration)
3 Augment Summoning
5 Power Attack
7 Natural Spell
9 Improved Natural Attack (Tail)
11 Improved Share Spell
This build assumes that somebody in your party will be casting Haste or Blessing of Fervor. If not then you might be better off taking Vital Strike instead of INA(Tail). The trick here is to share Strong Jaw with your ankylosaurus companion, increasing his tail attack to 6d6 and yours to 12d6. Your attack has a free Trip on it, and his has a free Stun. Maxing out Strength would be a good idea for both of you.
If you were human you could get a little more advanced with that extra feat:
Human Saurian Shaman
1 Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning
3 Combat Expertise
5 Improved Trip
7 Natural Spell
9 Greater Trip
11 Improved Share Spell
Sure, your tail would only do 8d6 this way, but you’d have a better chance of tripping somebody, and you’d get a free attack when you did. If you were Hasted it would just about even out...probably not a big deal…
Here’s a build for a grappling Monk/Druid. I put the Monk level at 9th since that lets you get Improved and Greater Grapple all at once:
Halfling Grab-Cat - Monk 1 / Lion Shaman Druid 14
1 Spell Focus (Conjuration)
3 Augment Summoning
5 Power Attack
7 Natural Spell
9 (Monk1) *Improved Unarmed Strike, *Stunning Fist, *Improved Grapple, Greater Grapple
11 Dragon Style
13 Planar Wild Shape
15 Rapid Grapple
Once again, a human could get a little fancier:
Human Grab-Cat - Monk 1 / Lion Shaman Druid 14
1 Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning
3 (Monk1) *Improved Unarmed Strike, *Stunning Fist, *Improved Grapple, Power Attack
5 Dragon Style
7 Natural Spell
9 Greater Grapple
11 Planar Wild Shape
13 Dragon Roar
15 Rapid Grapple
Getting Dragon Style earlier would help you pounce a lot starting at 6th level. You could obviously swap out Dragon Roar for something else. I just thought it might be amusing since you could be a big lion who roars at people. I played something a lot like the "Grab-Cat" build, but it was before Ultimate Combat came out, so I ended up taking Improved Natural Attack rather than the Dragon Style feats. The loss of 1 caster level wasn't really a big deal.
Grapple is an extremely powerful combat option. If you’re a Monk/Druid with a good Wisdom your AC shouldn’t be so low, especially if you can get an ally to cast Mage Armor on you. That said, if the opponent is hitting you too much a pin can be a very effective defense. Remember that besides your free rake attacks you’d also still have your animal companion plus any summoned allies to help apply damage to the pinned foe.
Trip can be a little tougher to pull off, but with the stegosaurus (or a wolf) it is something free you get on your attack. If it happens to work you gain a great advantage, basically +4 to hit and +4 AC against that foe. Anyhow, the chances of it working might be better than you’d think. If you’re really worried about it consider replacing Improved Share Spell with Outflank and having your animal companion take it too. Put an amulet with the menacing enchantment on your animal, move into flank, and get a +6 to hit which I think would apply to the free Trip attempt too. There’s also a Tandem Trip feat somewhere which I’ve heard can be quite effective.
Another feat that merits mention is Powerful Wildshape, which makes you count as one size larger for maneuvers. This lets Grab, Grapple, and Trip work against more foes.
EDIT: Actually, the feat is just called Powerful Shape