How do you become trained or better in a weapon your class doesn't know how to use?

[Oni Shogun]

Like if you're a rogue with a ninja concept and you'd like to use a katana. How would you do this? Fighter archtype? Are there feats or anything perhaps? Of if you wanted to know how to use a dueling sword, how do you do that? Just be from Aldori region?

[MEATSHED]

Tengu weapon proficiency as it makes it a simple weapon. Humans also have a similar thing with unconventional weaponry as katanas and wakizashi are likely common in certain regions. Aldori swords are weird, the most basic way to do it is to pick it up with weapon proficiency as most martials (rogues currently can't due to not getting all martial weapons but the remaster is changing that) and then taking aldori duelist. (A small note, katanas don't have agile or finesse so you can't sneak attack with them)

[Blave]

Katana has the two-handed trait, so getting Mauler dedication would give you full scaling proficiency.

Rogues also get proficiency in all martial weapons in the remaster so which will help a lot in a few months.

[Oni Shogun]

Why do Rogues get proficiency with all martial weapons? And will Pathfinder Society change that then?

[MEATSHED]

Future proofing mainly. Rogues have a lot of weapons that thematically they should be able to use but can't because they were added out of the core rule and thus not on rogues small list of martial weapons. It will probably be changed in society play when the remaster is out.

[Oni Shogun]

But if a weapon doesn't have agile or finesse, a rogue can't sneak attack with it? Or is that changing too?

[YuriP]

No rogues are only getting martial proficiency instead of the current specific selection of weapons. Sneak Attack keeps the same, you need that your weapon to be ranged, agile or finesse to add the precision damage to it.

It's a supposition of my part but I think this probably will change Ruffian too to allows them to use martial weapon in remaster limited to d8, but I maybe completely wrong is just a supposition based in fact the currently they just get it to simple because the other 4 weapons are already agile, finesse or ranged.

[Oni Shogun]

A rogue using ranged martial weapons and getting sneak attack could be pretty darn nasty.

[YuriP]

I have a rogue player that not only does ranged sneak attacks but also add attack spell damage to it with eldritch archer. Its a pretty good DPR.

[Blave]

Paizo said they want to link certain weapons or weapon types types the various subclasses of the rogue, with each racket getting additional benefits when using certain weapons. We don't have any details on this yet, to my knowledge.

[Cordell Kintner]

Blave wrote:

Paizo said they want to link certain weapons or weapon types types the various subclasses of the rogue, with each racket getting additional benefits when using certain weapons. We don't have any details on this yet, to my knowledge.

Return of the Knife Master when?

[Ed Reppert]

I'd kind of like to make an Arnis Master character (Arnis, also called Kali or Escrima) is a Filipino martial art that concentrates on unarmed combat, knives, swords, and two sticks 2 to 2 1/2 feet long). Probably a fighter rather than a rogue, but either should be possible. Just a thought.

[breithauptclan]

Scott Henry wrote:

Like if you're a rogue with a ninja concept and you'd like to use a katana. How would you do this? Fighter archtype? Are there feats or anything perhaps? Of if you wanted to know how to use a dueling sword, how do you do that? Just be from Aldori region?

To more completely answer the original question, there are several options to get proficiency in a new weapon. Some better than others, and some more expensive to the character build than others.

Weapon Proficiency is one of the least expensive to get, but it is also one of the least powerful. The proficiency doesn't progress past Trained. At higher levels of gameplay this will be a major hindrance and concern.

There are also Archetype options. These are more expensive to the build because it requires more than one feat if you ever want to take a different archetype later.

Fighter Archetype will also give you Trained proficiency with just the dedication. But again it doesn't increase beyond Trained by itself. There is an additional feat at level 12 that will progress the proficiency to Expert as long as your class has unlocked Expert proficiency with any weapons at that point.

Then there are other archetypes such as Mauler and Archer that will cause certain weapons to keep pace with the weapon proficiency of your class. That won't help with the Dueling Sword since there aren't any archetypes that give that type of scaling proficiency with one-handed weapons.

There are also ancestry options. These are fairly inexpensive to the build if you already are planning on playing that ancestry (it would be a very big change to the character build if you have to replace your entire ancestry in order to get the weapon that you want to use), but they are also rather limited on which weapons they give access to. If the weapon you want is on one of the lists of ancestry weapons and that ancestry has ancestral weapon feats you can use those to get the proficiency that you need. For example, the Tengu Weapon Familiarity feat mentioned above. These feats usually allow you to use your class's weapon proficiency of a lower weapon category rather than giving a proficiency level of their own.