I don't think you could wield any two handed weapon with four hands, there wouldn't be enough hilt for, four hands. Except for things like pole arms which are mostly handle.
Even then I don't think it would give anymore strength bonus than just using two hands.
Addinf more hands would not make the creature innately stronger. The 1.5 for two hands is the ability to put your whole weight behind it. As the opposite is true when two weapon fighting you can only apply half strength on your dominant hand.
If the arms are small, like an insects, they would likely in pairs be offering the same strength as a standard hand. If they are all full sized arms, then they're likely too bulky or awkward to weild along something with any level of finesse. As above, hilts are generally not built to that length, and weilding something like a quarterstaff with four points of contact, it would become awkward to use.
If you're looking for a boost to a player for this, perhaps consider if they are full sized arms, maybe that gives them the ability to use a weapon a size category larger? It would have the extra haft for the bigger hands, and give the damage boost without breaking from any standard. If for a monster, I'd likely go the same way, or consider the four armed creature weilding two two-handed weapons and use the multi-attack rules from the CRB or Monster Codex?
The rules state that you cannot use a weapon that does not fall under these categories:
- light
- one-handed
- two-handed
However, you could....
1. Fight in combat with a whole arsenal of weapons. You could wield a Whip, a sword, a bow, and a spear! all at once! You don't get any extra attacks, but when you did attack, you would have your choice! You have 15 reach [not threatening], 10 reach [threatening], you threaten adjacent, and you can make ranged attacks. Oh boy!
2. You could grab Multiweapon Fighting. (automatically replaces TWF for creatures with more than two hands) This will get you those extra attacks, with the normal penalties. Now, you can start customizing your combat strategy. Do you wield 2 Two-handed weapons at -4/-4? (Arguably, this would net you 1.5 STR on MH and 1.0 STR OH unless you pick up double slice.) Or you can fight with 4 1-handed weapons at -4/-4/-4/-4. Arguably, using a light weapon in all of your off hands might get you to -2/-2/-2/-2, but that is not explicitly stated in the Multiweapon Fighting feat.
3. Hold other stuff. like... idk... three nets! those are technically weapons at first, but once you use them... they'll have to waste all their actions trying to escape them or something.
4. Hold your arms out and spin around until you fly away. This may require specially shaped armor bracers to maximize lift.
However, as others have mentioned, using more than the appropriate number of hands on a weapon doesn't really do anything for you. (except for 1 handed weapons, you can slightly increase damage.)
If you are the GM, you can rule it however you want obviously. But nothing would let you, AFAIK, use a weapon outside the categories or use more than two hands on a weapon.
Is there a feat that lets you use two hands on a light weapon? That might set a precedent you could follow...
Addinf more hands would not make the creature innately stronger. The 1.5 for two hands is the ability to put your whole weight behind it. As the opposite is true when two weapon fighting you can only apply half strength on your dominant hand.
Your main hand gets the full Str Mod. The off-hand gets half the Str Mod.
^First I've heard of this, but good to know as a (sort of) precedent. (Seems like a lot of the D&D 3.5 non-Core stuff got pruned in the transition to Pathfinder.) Of course, if you were going to use such a precedent, it would need to depend upon whether the weapon grip was designed to take more than 2 hands. Most weapons other than polearms aren't designed this way, but a 4-handed race of significant numbers and technical skill might well design such a weapon. Although some would probably rather fight with a 2-handed weapon and a shield (maybe even 2-handing a Tower Shield to be able to bash with it(*)).
(*)Speaking of which, even though the Pathfinder rules say you can't bash with a Tower Shield, and I haven't heard of any exceptions like the Buckler has, the Romans used their Tower Shields (Roman Tower Shield = Scutum) to bash, even when holding them in just 1 hand.
In 3.5, the rule was +.5 str bonus for every hand beyond the first. 2 hands 1.5, 3 hands 2, 4 hands 2.5 x str, etc. No idea if any instances of this got ported over to pathfinder.
No there wasn't. It might have been a 3rd party rule, or a specific monster's special ability, but it wasn't a normal rule.
Regardless of anything else, there is no rule giving special privilege to races with more than 2 hands for the purposes of wielding a single melee weapon with all their hands. You only get the same amount of damage, 1.5 strength.
Beyond that, you only get 1 primary hand (this is inferred from the infamous hands of effort explanation) so you can only ever wield one two-handed weapon as a PC, unless you have some special rules that tell you otherwise.
In general, how Pathfinder handles creatures with more than the expected two arms isn't really covered well within the rules and generally just isn't something PCs should do.
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The 'one primary hand and all others off hands' has been explicitly stated since the original Bestiary came out;
"It has one primary hand, and all the others are off hands."
That has further been confirmed by multi-armed rules for Kasatha and others in the Advanced Race Guide and other locations;
Nothing extrapolated from 'hands of effort' required and no restriction of just one two-handed weapon at a time stated anywhere (indeed, there are examples to the contrary).
However, how or if that would be applied to using more than two arms with a single weapon is an open question. Given that there haven't been any examples of this actually published I'd lean towards assuming that extra arms beyond the second would provide no bonus. In any case there are no existing rules for it.
3.25? Want to say it was in savage species. I'll go check.
There was no 3.25. Savage Species was 3.0, not 3.5.
3.25? Want to say it was in savage species. I'll go check.There was no 3.25. Savage Species was 3.0, not 3.5.
As I recall, Savage Species was one of the very last books written by Wizards for D&D 3.0, if not the absolute last such book. The monster classes and a few other sections of that book did make use of a few changes that were in the works for D&D 3.5.
Now you've reminded me that I want an official Paizo Savage Species equivalent for Pathfinder . . . Probably have to wait until they do Iron Gods Anniversary Edition, though. (Robot Problem? Monster Solution!)