D&D 5E Non OGL monsters with serial #s filed off

[Sacrosanct]

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I am not asking for legal advice or whether or not you can actually do this. I'm asking if there have been publishers who have done this in the past.


There are several monsters that are not on the OGL, like umber hulks, carrion crawlers, mind flayers, otyughs, etc. Have there been people who have gotten around this by filing the #s off? For example, changing the stats a bit for a carrion crawler and renaming it tentacle beast or something? Seeing as how many of the original monsters (like the carrion crawler, bulette, and others) were based off of toys, I can't imagine that some publishers haven't done this without worry of being C&D'd by WotC.

Does anyone know if that's happened?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

C&C had a beholder knock off that was probably just different enough, or WotC didn't care.

 

[steeldragons]

I think just about all OS retroclones do this...Change the number of tentacles a mindflayer or the number of eyes on an otyugh stalk (and their names, of course) and you're probably pretty good. A mechanical tweak is probably just the final turning of the key to lock out the lawyers.

 

[Wicht]

This seems like an odd sort of question for the 5th edition forum, which doesn't have the OGL.

The short answer is yes and no. Probably the closest I can think of to what you are actually suggesting in a published work is the pseudo umber-hulk in the early 3.0 adventure Nemoren's Vault, published by Fiery Dragon and written by James Bell.

Tome of Horrors has several monsters related to monsters that are not OGL, such as alternate beholders, and the young and older forms of the Carrion Crawler.

For the Book of Monster Templates, published by Rite Publishing, as a fun exercise I created a template, that if applied to an elf or human would essentially give you a mindflayer, and then applied it to a different creature, for a different end product.

Mostly though, the easiest thing to do is that which Paizo did and does, and which most others do - just use monsters that fill the same niche, such as serpent-folk instead of yaunti, or aboleth instead of mindflayers.

 

[Wicht]

I think just about all OS retroclones do this...Change the number of tentacles a mindflayer or the number of eyes on an otyugh stalk...

Otyugh are OGL.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I know Reaper does this for miniatures: filth beast, phase cat, eye monster, burrowing horror etc. Presumably they make them different enough to avoid C&D's.

 

[Sacrosanct]

This seems like an odd sort of question for the 5th edition forum, which doesn't have the OGL.
.

That's actually exactly why it was asked. Many people are using the OGL to put out 5e products

 

[steeldragons]

Otyugh are OGL.

Good to know...but you got my meaning, I trust.

How about ropers?

 

[Sacrosanct]

Otyugh are OGL.

Did it change? The only list I found was here, and that creature is on it

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2iw6v?List-of-nonogl-monsters

 

[Wicht]

Good to know...but you got my meaning, I trust.

How about ropers?

Ropers are also open.