Long time listener first time caller. I have played 5e for many years and this is my first time DMing. I have a player who is an Artificer (did not know what I was getting myself into) and he has a version of the steel defender. Which is pretty powerful from my stand point. The player can basically command it to do anything which means it can go around corners and trigger traps with no consequence to the players. I have a party of 6 plus 2 NPCs and the Steel Defender. I am running the Sunless Citadel. We are on session 6 and it seems every session me and the player argue about the OP abilities of the Steel Defender. I don't want to take the fun out of playing the character but don't want it to just annihilate everything for the players. Any tips/tricks on how to DM this character?
I've just flagged your post for moving to the Dungeon Masters Only section (the DM's Guild forum is for content published on the DMsguild website - It's easily mistaken!)
As for your problem, I am not 100% familiar with the Steel Defender but I gather the gist of it is that it's an animated metal creature which is under the control of the artificer. As such, it should be taking damage from anything it's encountering - the version on this site (I'm assuming that's the one) has 15hp, so won't last long if it's taking damage.
As for the traps, you can have them triggered through Detect Life, so the construct does not trigger them. You can have it fall into a pit and die (basically, decide that the pit is there when they send the defender; if a player goes first, save the pit for next time the defender goes first).
What sort of traps are you using? If it's traps which trigger once, deal damage, and then stop, consider changing up the traps - give them lasting effects (the rooms on fire now, enjoy!), or have them need a puzzle to escape (the doors close, the room is flooding - pull a lever or drown/be flushed away) - this one would mean the defender will be stuck in a room on its own, and would drown or be flushed away without commands from the artificer. You could also have the traps alert enemies. Or, the traps can reset (like the blades in indiana jones 3 - everyone who goes through gets deaded, not just the first).
If you're letting the guardian trigger traps without getting trapped itself, then stop doing that -- the guardian sets off the trap, the trap hits the guardian. It can't do that too much without getting killed.
As far as I know, the steel defender is not a notably overpowered feature. Based on my calculations, assuming that the artificer maxed INT, it should have 31 HP. That's not much, especially with only 15 AC. The next time is goes around the corner to set off traps, don't have it come back. Maybe it fell into a pit or got caught in a net?
I also want to say that the defender only really has three abilities- Force-Empowered Rend, Repair, and Deflect Attack. If the players are arguing about several different abilities, they are most like making things up. Just make sure that they didn't misinterpret a feature or come up with one that isn't there. Okay, on to the abilities.
Force-Empowered Rend is essentially just a normal melee attack. The to-hit bonus is the same as the players, and it only does 1d8 + 3 force damage (average 7.5) on a hit. Nothing broken here.
Repair is the equivalent of taking a healing potion. It costs the defender an action and the player a bonus action, has 3 uses per day, and restores 2d8 + 3 HP (average 12). A generic healing potion costs the player an action and restores 2d4 + 2 HP (average 7). Since using the defender eats up the player's BA, it's potent but not broken, especially since most enemies should be dealing more than that on any given turn.
Deflect Attack is arguably the most useful of these features. It allows you to give on creature disadvantage on its attack rolls. However, disadvantage is a pretty common thing that isn't difficult to negate, and the monster it's next to can simply move away (no opportunity attacks), or attack the defender itself. It's also notable that this disadvantage only happens once per round, since it's a reaction, which also allows the targeted creature to move away without opportunity attacks.
All in all, it's not broken, just useful. Make sure that your players are using the features correctly.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Hello there.
Long time listener first time caller. I have played 5e for many years and this is my first time DMing. I have a player who is an Artificer (did not know what I was getting myself into) and he has a version of the steel defender. Which is pretty powerful from my stand point. The player can basically command it to do anything which means it can go around corners and trigger traps with no consequence to the players. I have a party of 6 plus 2 NPCs and the Steel Defender. I am running the Sunless Citadel. We are on session 6 and it seems every session me and the player argue about the OP abilities of the Steel Defender. I don't want to take the fun out of playing the character but don't want it to just annihilate everything for the players. Any tips/tricks on how to DM this character?
I've just flagged your post for moving to the Dungeon Masters Only section (the DM's Guild forum is for content published on the DMsguild website - It's easily mistaken!)
As for your problem, I am not 100% familiar with the Steel Defender but I gather the gist of it is that it's an animated metal creature which is under the control of the artificer. As such, it should be taking damage from anything it's encountering - the version on this site (I'm assuming that's the one) has 15hp, so won't last long if it's taking damage.
As for the traps, you can have them triggered through Detect Life, so the construct does not trigger them. You can have it fall into a pit and die (basically, decide that the pit is there when they send the defender; if a player goes first, save the pit for next time the defender goes first).
What sort of traps are you using? If it's traps which trigger once, deal damage, and then stop, consider changing up the traps - give them lasting effects (the rooms on fire now, enjoy!), or have them need a puzzle to escape (the doors close, the room is flooding - pull a lever or drown/be flushed away) - this one would mean the defender will be stuck in a room on its own, and would drown or be flushed away without commands from the artificer. You could also have the traps alert enemies. Or, the traps can reset (like the blades in indiana jones 3 - everyone who goes through gets deaded, not just the first).
If you're letting the guardian trigger traps without getting trapped itself, then stop doing that -- the guardian sets off the trap, the trap hits the guardian. It can't do that too much without getting killed.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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As far as I know, the steel defender is not a notably overpowered feature. Based on my calculations, assuming that the artificer maxed INT, it should have 31 HP. That's not much, especially with only 15 AC. The next time is goes around the corner to set off traps, don't have it come back. Maybe it fell into a pit or got caught in a net?
I also want to say that the defender only really has three abilities- Force-Empowered Rend, Repair, and Deflect Attack. If the players are arguing about several different abilities, they are most like making things up. Just make sure that they didn't misinterpret a feature or come up with one that isn't there. Okay, on to the abilities.
Force-Empowered Rend is essentially just a normal melee attack. The to-hit bonus is the same as the players, and it only does 1d8 + 3 force damage (average 7.5) on a hit. Nothing broken here.
Repair is the equivalent of taking a healing potion. It costs the defender an action and the player a bonus action, has 3 uses per day, and restores 2d8 + 3 HP (average 12). A generic healing potion costs the player an action and restores 2d4 + 2 HP (average 7). Since using the defender eats up the player's BA, it's potent but not broken, especially since most enemies should be dealing more than that on any given turn.
Deflect Attack is arguably the most useful of these features. It allows you to give on creature disadvantage on its attack rolls. However, disadvantage is a pretty common thing that isn't difficult to negate, and the monster it's next to can simply move away (no opportunity attacks), or attack the defender itself. It's also notable that this disadvantage only happens once per round, since it's a reaction, which also allows the targeted creature to move away without opportunity attacks.
All in all, it's not broken, just useful. Make sure that your players are using the features correctly.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
Your characters shouldn't be third level by session six of the Sunless Citadel, I believe.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Yeah I was going to say that - it’s not that steel defender is OP it’s more that your characters are the artificer is just getting there first.
although 6 sessions you should be more or less at the end of Sunless Citadel.