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<blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4016672" data-attributes="member: 710">Let's say I create a &quot;Rage Mage&quot; paragon path for 4E and post in in the Gleemax house rule forum. It could be picked by either the Feral Berserker or the Sorceror class, and would mix the berserkers rage with sorceror spells.1 year later, WotC puts out a new supplement, containing a paragon path called &quot;Spell Berserker&quot;. It has a very similar concept, the names of a few powers are different, but some are the same, and some even share the same mechanics. Now, did WotC &quot;steal&quot; my idea? Or was it just so obvious to anyone familiar with 4E and the two classes that it had to happen? What if I decided to sue WotC? What if the judge/jury decides that WotC copied from me? Suddenly, WotC has to pay me just because I accidently posted something that looked like one of their ideas, but just a few months later?(By the way, I picked this example because the opposite thing - minus law suits or anthing like that - happened with my group. We posted - on our own web site - a rage mage class, and the German publisher for D&amp;D at the time emailed our webmaster that we had to remove it because a similar class appeared in a Dragon magazine. I doubt that they had any real legal base here, with OGL and fair use and what else around, but it's still an anecdote that gets me thinking...)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mustrum_Ridcully, post: 4016672, member: 710"] Let's say I create a "Rage Mage" paragon path for 4E and post in in the Gleemax house rule forum. It could be picked by either the Feral Berserker or the Sorceror class, and would mix the berserkers rage with sorceror spells. 1 year later, WotC puts out a new supplement, containing a paragon path called "Spell Berserker". It has a very similar concept, the names of a few powers are different, but some are the same, and some even share the same mechanics. Now, did WotC "steal" my idea? Or was it just so obvious to anyone familiar with 4E and the two classes that it had to happen? What if I decided to sue WotC? What if the judge/jury decides that WotC copied from me? Suddenly, WotC has to pay me just because I accidently posted something that looked like one of their ideas, but just a few months later? (By the way, I picked this example because the opposite thing - minus law suits or anthing like that - happened with my group. We posted - on our own web site - a rage mage class, and the German publisher for D&D at the time emailed our webmaster that we had to remove it because a similar class appeared in a Dragon magazine. I doubt that they had any real legal base here, with OGL and fair use and what else around, but it's still an anecdote that gets me thinking...) [/QUOTE]

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