how to play Katar Hero

For most people the Katar is a suboptimal choice. Still it has pretty nice tricks, and can be used either with either melee balanced or unarmed. Its flexible that way which could be useful depending on your build. Finally, IIRC Pedro has said elsewhere (the old/lost boards) that it is not a typo.

Yes. I asked this on the old boards and Pedro said that it was intentional (d4 and speed 4) because of it’s tricks and flexibility.

I don’t understand this. Lots of weapons have the same tricks as the Katar and many weapons have 4 or 5 tricks. The flexibility is also shared with other weapons that can do multiple types of damage or be thrown. I understand there’s going to be some subjectivity for weapons, but I don’t see how the choice of tricks (as long as they are not unique and more powerful than other ones) should affect a weapon’s base speed/damage from the ‘norm’. I generally don’t see weapons with sub-par tricks getting a boost.

John

I do think there are ‘good’ tricks and there are ‘not so good’ tricks. I’d definitely love to compile people’s thoughts on some of the tricks that I’d say were ‘not so good’.

You can take Weapon Training (Katar) with the Expert Archetype.

The only drawback (based on the last two test builds I made) is getting access to Learn Martial Technique and various Combat talents to broaden the skills. Although its also the only time I have found “Learn any one Talent” advancement option useful to take.