I understand the viablitiy of wizard tripper and will look more closely at it, but prefer to not be a caster. I would rather be the werewolf hunter, or the barbarian vampire tracker archetype. I will do the calcs for going brown bear. Will I have trouble staying in hybrid form as an afflicted lycanthrope?
One thing to note is that a hybrid brown bear gives me large size, with enlarge person that is a huge size. Which is a huge increase for tirpping.
Yeah, I liked the idea of enalrge person with hybrid brown bear for 15 ft natural reach and +8 size bonus to tripping alone, let alone the strength. But if that's not possible, Polymorph is probably the next best bet for sheer size and str. The skill DCs to control your form aren't very high, though you can't afford a great Wis even with hte racial +2. With 5 HD and 2 LA, you could probably have a +10 mod starting out, so the DCs might be a little tough.
As for the casting option... if you stick to spamming the same buff spells each day, you don't even need to feel like a caster, more like a supernatural killing machine. Until you get more spells slots level 4+, though, you will need a plan for when you can't be polymorphed. I'd suggest just picking up some buff spells for allies and minor battlefield control. Haste, Grease, etc... can get a lot of mileage out of a single casting. Some forms with 7 HD or less you could polymorph into: Annis Hag (Str 25, Large, lots of natural attacks as options when you don't need to trip), Ogre (Str 21, Large, handy aquatic version for water encounters), Troll (Str 23, Large, natural attack options, and an aquatic cousin), or Treant (Str 29, Huge size, can't use a manufactured reach weapon, though).