I know I’m not the first one to try this, and from what I’ve found, it seems like this isn’t really easily done / done at all.
The best I have so far is to make a homebrew weapon that is a magical greatclub. Modify it to be force damage instead, and then when it’s equipped, change the flat damage modifier to reflect my PB instead of my INT modifier. I also made two homebrew spells for the Mending and Repair healing to the Steel Defender, which I had to assign to a homebrew subclass since its a required field but I don’t want them on my artificer without the item so that I can have the Repair action use charges instead of spell slots. Unfortunately, doing it this way locks the flat modifier for the Repair action at whatever I set it to and it doesn’t adjust with my PB. I have level modifiers on the Repair “spell” that work, but only if it’s not through the item.
I have also tried making a custom feat, that works well, but doesn’t automatically use charges for the Repair “spell”, and makes a Force-Empowered Rend attack that isn’t customizeable so it’s almost always wrong (except when your PB = your INT modifier).
So I think I’m stuck with using the magical greatclub for the SD’s attack, and a feat for the repair action (and manually tracking the charges on it), and the mending can be added with either of them. (Makes more sense to put it with the Repair feat. This would also allow both the item and the feat to be shared as there’s no homebrew spells tied into other that invalidate sharing.)
But! I’m curious if anyone has any better ideas. (Also hope this might be helpful to other people, if it makes sense at all).
ETA: It occurs to me I can add in the Saving Throws and Skill Checks to the Feat as well. It seems I can’t get the PB to be included, so on the few things where the PB applies I have to do level overrides. This is a total of 6 Saving throws, two with level overrides, and same with the Skill Checks (with lumping similar skills together).
Boy, I'd love to find a way to make those stats all rollable (and accurate). One of my players has a real issue with keeping all his character bits and bobs organized and DDB has really helped with that.
Now, if his Homonculus and Steel Defender were working properly... *chef's kiss*
So I shared a home brew weapon that does the Steel Defender attack, and a home brew feat that does all the other stuff. Not sure how to direct you to it as I’m still new to DDB.
Hi guys, also having some issues here. I'm cool enough with the action part of this, but I'd rather have a weapon attack that can do the Defender attack on it's own, but when creating a custom melee attack I run into trouble, the attack is spell to hit is easy if you put INT as the attack option and bring in proficiency. The problem happens when I want to add the +damage and it takes the Int and not the Pb bonus. Do you guys now how to change this?
If you select the weapon and go into customize, you can adjust the damage bonus to your INT modifier minus your PB. At low levels this will be negative but the system takes it. You’ll have to adjust whenever either value changes but DDB has no option for adding PB to weapon damage as far as I can tell.
It's not a perfect, or ideal, fix. But the Chrome Extension "Beyond 20", which is intended to help integrate Roll20 and DnD Beyond, but it also allows you to make basically most things "rollable", like in the Steel Defender stat block, even if you're not using Roll20.
It's not perfect, but it has been a great work around so I don't have to add in these special weapons and such!
I know I’m not the first one to try this, and from what I’ve found, it seems like this isn’t really easily done / done at all.
The best I have so far is to make a homebrew weapon that is a magical greatclub. Modify it to be force damage instead, and then when it’s equipped, change the flat damage modifier to reflect my PB instead of my INT modifier. I also made two homebrew spells for the Mending and Repair healing to the Steel Defender, which I had to assign to a homebrew subclass since its a required field but I don’t want them on my artificer without the item so that I can have the Repair action use charges instead of spell slots. Unfortunately, doing it this way locks the flat modifier for the Repair action at whatever I set it to and it doesn’t adjust with my PB. I have level modifiers on the Repair “spell” that work, but only if it’s not through the item.
I have also tried making a custom feat, that works well, but doesn’t automatically use charges for the Repair “spell”, and makes a Force-Empowered Rend attack that isn’t customizeable so it’s almost always wrong (except when your PB = your INT modifier).
So I think I’m stuck with using the magical greatclub for the SD’s attack, and a feat for the repair action (and manually tracking the charges on it), and the mending can be added with either of them. (Makes more sense to put it with the Repair feat. This would also allow both the item and the feat to be shared as there’s no homebrew spells tied into other that invalidate sharing.)
But! I’m curious if anyone has any better ideas. (Also hope this might be helpful to other people, if it makes sense at all).
ETA: It occurs to me I can add in the Saving Throws and Skill Checks to the Feat as well. It seems I can’t get the PB to be included, so on the few things where the PB applies I have to do level overrides. This is a total of 6 Saving throws, two with level overrides, and same with the Skill Checks (with lumping similar skills together).
Do you not see the Steel Defender in the Actions tab of your battle smith artificer’s character sheet?
ran into this issue as well no button prompts/ features are not updating
So the stat block is there, but no helpful buttons for rolling to hit, rolling for damage, etc.
Boy, I'd love to find a way to make those stats all rollable (and accurate). One of my players has a real issue with keeping all his character bits and bobs organized and DDB has really helped with that.
Now, if his Homonculus and Steel Defender were working properly... *chef's kiss*
So I shared a home brew weapon that does the Steel Defender attack, and a home brew feat that does all the other stuff. Not sure how to direct you to it as I’m still new to DDB.
Hi guys, also having some issues here. I'm cool enough with the action part of this, but I'd rather have a weapon attack that can do the Defender attack on it's own, but when creating a custom melee attack I run into trouble, the attack is spell to hit is easy if you put INT as the attack option and bring in proficiency. The problem happens when I want to add the +damage and it takes the Int and not the Pb bonus. Do you guys now how to change this?
If you select the weapon and go into customize, you can adjust the damage bonus to your INT modifier minus your PB. At low levels this will be negative but the system takes it. You’ll have to adjust whenever either value changes but DDB has no option for adding PB to weapon damage as far as I can tell.
It's not a perfect, or ideal, fix. But the Chrome Extension "Beyond 20", which is intended to help integrate Roll20 and DnD Beyond, but it also allows you to make basically most things "rollable", like in the Steel Defender stat block, even if you're not using Roll20.
It's not perfect, but it has been a great work around so I don't have to add in these special weapons and such!
Here's another DnD Beyond forum post about the extension: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/38455-beyond20-integrating-d-d-beyond-with-roll20