What is allowed for Creature Statblocks?

[Sigurd]

With D20 publications what is the current standard Statblock?

Are you allowed to use the Statblock Layout from MM5?
What about the Lore tables that define what players know with what knowledge roles?

Can anyone point me to a link or offer any good advice?


Sigurd

[pawsplay]

Don't copy any exact text which is not OGC and do not reproduce the font/color/appearance of the stat block. Other than that, you have nothing to worry about.

[Sigurd]

Ok, but are there any reservations on using the structure of the statblock from MM5?

Especially,

Knowledge (The Planes or whatever)

DC - Result
14 - some data
20 - some more detailed data
30 - even more detailed data

[afstanton]

Highly unlikely, considering there are plenty of examples of prior art that do that sort of thing. For examples, take a look at Privateer Press' Monsternomicon books.

If there's a problem with it, WotC would be in as much trouble as you.

[Voadam]

from the skills section of the srd at www.srd.org

Check
Answering a question within your field of study has a DC of 10 (for really easy questions), 15 (for basic questions), or 20 to 30 (for really tough questions).

In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.

For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.

Including that type of SRD derived information block is perfectly within the reasonable bounds of the OGL.

EN Critter series of books does so if you are looking for an example.

As afstanton noted the Monsternomicon books do it too, though they use their monster lore version of the knowledge skill.

I think the later non-OGC MMs might use a different formula than the srd skill section though.

[Sigurd]

That was just the answer I was looking for

Thanks