The Battle Master subclass is not in the Systems Reference Document. I am designing a Wild West supplement for d&d-5e, to be published on DriveThruRPG, and I want to add a few Gun-Themed maneuvers that can be applied when firing a gun. Can I legally say “If you have access to maneuvers, the following maneuvers are added to the list of maneuvers available to you.”, and then list maneuvers that refer to superiority dice?
I cannot figure out if this would be considered a violation of product identity or not.
Best Answer
Probably not, but talk to a lawyer.
As written in the OGL 1.0a, the current license, this comes down to whether "maneuvers" count as product identity. Publishing under the OGL grants some permissions and incurs some restrictions in a way that's somewhat incongruous with normal copyright/trademark laws; "maneuver" isn't protected in those aspects (and likely couldn't be), but agreeing to the license adds some strictures.
Starting with the limitations on the use of product identity:
If "maneuvers" are product identity, given that they do not appear in the SRD, you would not be permitted to use them or reference them, including but not limited to just indicating that you have new maneuvers that are compatible. Product identity is defined fairly broadly under the OGL:
There's no exhaustive list of what is or isn't product identity published by WotC which leaves this in a bit of a grey area, but as the OGL calls out "names and descriptions of [...] special abilities" as being product identity, my read is that maneuvers count as product identity. This would mean that you can neither use nor refer to maneuvers in content published under OGL (as long as "maneuver" is clearly referring to 5e maneuvers — use as a general term, not referring to the special ability, ought to be fine), with various hazy middle grounds. Anything more specific is likely the purview of an actual lawyer.