What happened to the Beholder?

[demonsbane]

This is pretty simple:

Opening FG, the Beholder always is missing in d20 monsters entry. Same in Digital Adventures Complete SDR Ruleset, and same even in the SRD files I was looking on the internet.

Why is this? A simple errata or unintentional omision?

[Wavestone]

The SRD, and thus the default ruleset contains most monsters, but not all. There are a few that is deemed by WotC as their IP, and arent given away for free, to be used by anyone..

Beholder, Mind Flayer, Githyanki/Githzerai, Displacer Beast, and a couple more..

You can easily ask on some boards (wotc, ENworld) exactly which ones are missing from the SRD.. such threads do pop up from time to time.. Micght even be a such thread here, in one of the content creating forums.

edit- If you look close, you will see that the names of some spells and items are changed in the SRD compared to PHB.. IP names are removed.. like "Bigby's Clenched Fist" becomes "Clenched Fist" and "Quiver of Ehlonna" becomes "Efficient Quiver" or some such..

[demonsbane]

The SRD, and thus the default ruleset contains most monsters, but not all. There are a few that is deemed by WotC as their IP, and arent given away for free, to be used by anyone.. (...)


Thanks Wavestone for your anwer. I had no idea about that.

[Drachenfurz]

Could this be a problem of the copyrights? It seems to me that the names created by the creators of D&D for specific monsters and NSCs are not allowed to be used.

[Kalan]

Could this be a problem of the copyrights? It seems to me that the names created by the creators of D&D for specific monsters and NSCs are not allowed to be used.

Yah more or less - the Beholder, Mind Flayer (Illithid), et al. are all deemed Intellectual Property by WoTC...

[Griogre]

D20 is a subset of core D&D. It is such a large subset, many people who don't follow the legal mumbo jumbo don't realize it is not everything - but d20 publishers have to be very aware or they could lose their livelihood. Interestingly, over time d20 has come to hold other things than what is in the core D&D books - Psionics and extra deity domains are a good example of this. This can add to the confusion of what is d20.

[demonsbane]

True.

Even parts of Deities & Demigods and Epic Levels are present in the d20 SRD.

[Thore_Ironrock]

Beholder, mind flayers, and a few others were copyrighted because of the Forgotten Realms and the potential TV/movie deals WOTC had in the works when d20/OGL was developed. As for gods and such, anything that was specific to a copyrighted campaign world (FR, GH, DL, EB, etc) was also exclude either in the first or second versions of the d20 agreement.

Somewhere on WOTC's site is a complete list of what is excluded from CORE to d20. Sorry, I don't have it bookmarked anymore.

[Flynn]

From the Legal Information file of the SRD:

"The following items are designated Product Identity, as defined in Section 1(e) of the Open Game License Version 1.0a, and are subject to the conditions set forth in Section 7 of the OGL, and are not Open Content: Dungeons & Dragons, D&D, Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master, Monster Manual, d20 System, Wizards of the Coast, d20 (when used as a trademark), Forgotten Realms, Faerûn, proper names (including those used in the names of spells or items), places, Red Wizard of Thay, the City of Union, Heroic Domains of Ysgard, Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo, Windswept Depths of Pandemonium, Infinite Layers of the Abyss, Tarterian Depths of Carceri, Gray Waste of Hades, Bleak Eternity of Gehenna, Nine Hells of Baator, Infernal Battlefield of Acheron, Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia, Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, Twin Paradises of Bytopia, Blessed Fields of Elysium, Wilderness of the Beastlands, Olympian Glades of Arborea, Concordant Domain of the Outlands, Sigil, Lady of Pain, Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, beholder, gauth, carrion crawler, tanar’ri, baatezu, displacer beast, githyanki, githzerai, mind flayer, illithid, umber hulk, yuan-ti."

The last little bit there outlines the specific monsters or monster names in the core rules that WOTC felt were considered Product Identity.

Hope that helps,
Flynn

[demonsbane]

Hope that helps,
Flynn

Sure. Thank you.