I have found a way to get the correct stats for the Steel Defender to show up in your Extras tab on your character sheet using homebrew.
We mostly all know by this point that the Steel Defender monster that you can add you your Extras tab on your character sheet uses an outdated statblock from before TCoE. In an attempt to fix this for myself, I went and make a copy of the Steel Defender as a homebrew monster that I could manually fix to show correct stats.
These are the changes you must make in order to have your Steel Defender use the proper TCoE stats in your Extras tab
Go to create a homebrew monster and use "Steel Defender" as your template
Change "CHALLENGE RATING" to equal your Artificer level in order to give the Steel Defender your increased PB. This will also fix the Steel Defender's proficient saving throws.
Manually change the to-hit bonus and damage bonus of Force Empowered Rend in "ACTIONS DESCRIPTION"
To-hit bonus is equal to your INT + PB
Damage bonus is equal to your PB
Manually change the healing bonus of Repair (3/Day) in "ACTIONS DESCRIPTION" to be equal to your PB
Change "HIT POINTS DIE COUNT" to equal your Artificer level (Yes, Steel Defenders have HD)
Change "PASSIVE PERCEPTION" to 10 + PB*2 (Actually type in the number)
Under SKILLS, edit Athletics to have an "ADDITIONAL BONUS" equal to the negative of your PB. This may seem weird so let me explain
I have discovered that the skill bonuses for the Steel Defender (Even as a homebrew copy) that are shown in the Extras tab on your character sheet are hard-coded to follow this rule:
PB*2 + Steel Defender's Skill Attribute Bonus
So even if you were to do something crazy like give your Steel defender an Arcana of 20, it would still show up in Extras as PB*2 +INT(-3). But the "ADDITIONAL BONUS" still gets added. If you set Athletics to have an "ADDITIONAL BONUS" equal to negative PB, this corrects for it having expertise when it should just have proficiency. Luckily, the Steel Defender actually has expertise in Perception so we don't have to do anything to Perception.
Please note that if you directly view the Details page for this Homebrew Steel Defender, the bonuses will show up exactly as you assign them. The above formula is only applied when you view it through the extras tab for reasons beyond my understanding. But that's how we all look at it anyway.
You can also choose to upload the Small and Large avatars so it looks the same as the default steel defender. The small avatar is the thumbnail that you see next to Steel Defender in the Extras tab and the large avatar is the image at the bottom of the stat block when you click on it in the Extras tab.
And with that, you should have a custom homebrew Steel Defender with the proper TCoE stats in your Extras tab. You will have to go back and manually change things again as you level up, but it still works.
Please let me know if you find any problems with this. I've spent way too long trying to figure this out and I'm happy to call this complete.
There's still the Saving Throws, which start to diverge once your character has a PB greater than 2, and don't have an Additional Bonus field to make adjustments...
Otherwise this works well. I do a homebrew for my Homunculus Servant in a similar fashion (and with the same issue regarding Saving Throws.)
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Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
There's still the Saving Throws, which start to diverge once your character has a PB greater than 2, and don't have an Additional Bonus field to make adjustments...
Otherwise this works well. I do a homebrew for my Homunculus Servant in a similar fashion (and with the same issue regarding Saving Throws.)
Setting the Steel Defender's CR to equal your level gives it the correct PB which then applies to the saving throws.
I play a level 8 Battle Smith, so setting the CR to 8 gives it a +3 PB and it shows the correct saving throws of Dex +4 and Con +5.
I reach similar conclusions playing a lot with the homebrew. But your explanation is very succinct and precise. Just one silly detail I might add:
When editing the athletic bonus it will show 0 in base and the negative in the bonus. If you just update the bonus and click accept it will give you an error. In order to accept the new value the 0 in base value must be manually erased then click save changes.
Agreed, it is inelegant but it works. And for the Hit Dice and Repair features just use the Customize: Note field by clicking on the stat block in the actions panel.
I have found a way to get the correct stats for the Steel Defender to show up in your Extras tab on your character sheet using homebrew.
We mostly all know by this point that the Steel Defender monster that you can add you your Extras tab on your character sheet uses an outdated statblock from before TCoE. In an attempt to fix this for myself, I went and make a copy of the Steel Defender as a homebrew monster that I could manually fix to show correct stats.
These are the changes you must make in order to have your Steel Defender use the proper TCoE stats in your Extras tab
I have discovered that the skill bonuses for the Steel Defender (Even as a homebrew copy) that are shown in the Extras tab on your character sheet are hard-coded to follow this rule:
So even if you were to do something crazy like give your Steel defender an Arcana of 20, it would still show up in Extras as PB*2 +INT(-3). But the "ADDITIONAL BONUS" still gets added. If you set Athletics to have an "ADDITIONAL BONUS" equal to negative PB, this corrects for it having expertise when it should just have proficiency. Luckily, the Steel Defender actually has expertise in Perception so we don't have to do anything to Perception.
Please note that if you directly view the Details page for this Homebrew Steel Defender, the bonuses will show up exactly as you assign them. The above formula is only applied when you view it through the extras tab for reasons beyond my understanding. But that's how we all look at it anyway.
You can also choose to upload the Small and Large avatars so it looks the same as the default steel defender. The small avatar is the thumbnail that you see next to Steel Defender in the Extras tab and the large avatar is the image at the bottom of the stat block when you click on it in the Extras tab.
And with that, you should have a custom homebrew Steel Defender with the proper TCoE stats in your Extras tab. You will have to go back and manually change things again as you level up, but it still works.
Please let me know if you find any problems with this. I've spent way too long trying to figure this out and I'm happy to call this complete.
There's still the Saving Throws, which start to diverge once your character has a PB greater than 2, and don't have an Additional Bonus field to make adjustments...
Otherwise this works well. I do a homebrew for my Homunculus Servant in a similar fashion (and with the same issue regarding Saving Throws.)
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Setting the Steel Defender's CR to equal your level gives it the correct PB which then applies to the saving throws.
I play a level 8 Battle Smith, so setting the CR to 8 gives it a +3 PB and it shows the correct saving throws of Dex +4 and Con +5.
I will edit the main post to state this directly.
I reach similar conclusions playing a lot with the homebrew. But your explanation is very succinct and precise. Just one silly detail I might add:
When editing the athletic bonus it will show 0 in base and the negative in the bonus. If you just update the bonus and click accept it will give you an error. In order to accept the new value the 0 in base value must be manually erased then click save changes.
I own all of the Ebberon content and Tasha's but I can not find Steel defender anywhere.
This problem has existed for years. I am perplexed they have not fixed it yet.
The fix was to add it to the Artificer's actions section.
It's still an underwhelming fix. there's no tracking for hit dice or uses of the repair feature.
Agreed, it is inelegant but it works. And for the Hit Dice and Repair features just use the Customize: Note field by clicking on the stat block in the actions panel.
I can't find it either.
I made this a couple of years ago and worked fine. Now I’m trying to replicate it for a different PC and can’t find the steel defender.
Looking back at the creature previously homebrewed and clicking in the “…to similar to steel defender” takes me to a 404 error page. https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/557540-steel-defender
Was the steel defender completely removed?