There's a very simple reason to assume the "vanish" in the spell's description doesn't give advantage: The spell's description would tell you if it did. It's not rules text, it's just flavor of the spell, or it would tell you to apply advantage to all the attacks made as part of it.
Are you technically not seen for the exact instant of the attacks? Maybe not. But spells do exactly what they say they do, no more, no less. They tell the mechanical function.
What matters for vision is whether or not you're seen at the time you cast the spell. And even then, since the attacks are resolved in order, you only get advantage on the first attack unless you have something granting persistent advantage (such as Greater Invisibility keeping you invisible).
What matters for vision is whether or not you're seen at the time you cast the spell.
This is not true. The Unseen Attackers and Targets rule is applied at the moment that an attack is made, not at some other moment prior to or after the attack. It doesn't matter if the attack happens to be nested within some sort of Action or Spell or a creature's Turn or anything like that. It only matters whether or not the attacker is seen when the attack is made.
since the attacks are resolved in order, you only get advantage on the first attack unless you have something granting persistent advantage (such as Greater Invisibility keeping you invisible).
This is not true either. Every attack is evaluated independently based on the circumstances that are present during that attack. It seems like you might be conflating the rules for Hiding with this situation. This attacker is not necessarily hidden. He is simply Unseen during every attack before eventually reappearing in a new location via teleportation.
There's a very simple reason to assume the "vanish" in the spell's description doesn't give advantage: The spell's description would tell you if it did.
I disagree with this.
A spell's description will explicitly provide its own rules that apply when the spell effect is originated, but the general rules of the game always apply unless the spell description explicitly creates an exception.
For example, there are a handful of spells in the Basic Rules which explicitly declare that an attacker gains Advantage, such as: Faerie Fire, Foresight, Guiding Bolt, Otto's Irresistible Dance and Shining Smite. The reason why these spells must explicitly declare this Advantage is because there is no general rule that would otherwise apply to those situations. Normally, if you can see a creature, you can simply attack that creature with a normal roll. So, Faerie Fire lights up a target creature so that you can see it. So what? According to the general rules, why should that provide any Advantage? It doesn't. That spell provides Advantage only because the spell explicitly says that it does. A similar effect happens with Guiding Bolt and Shining Smite. Otto's Irresistible Dance causes a creature to dance. Is there any general rule which says that you should have Advantage when attacking a creature that is dancing? No. So, the spell must explicitly declare this.
Now consider the case where I cast Invisibility on myself. Does the Invisibility spell say anything about granting Advantage to my attack rolls? No. But, under normal circumstances will I have Advantage on my next attack roll? Yes. Why is that? Because there is already a general rule that applies to that situation. The rules for the Invisible condition state: "your attack rolls have Advantage". So, the spell description does not need to explicitly state this. It is already covered by the existing general rules.
Likewise, the Steel Wind Strike spell does not have to explicitly declare that attacks are made with Advantage. The general rule for Unseen Attackers and Targets already applies. So, it is enough for the spell to describe an effect which makes the attacker unseen, such as when the attacker vanishes.
It's not rules text, it's just flavor of the spell . . .
Well, this is another matter. I do not read this as flavor text in this particular case for this particular spell. But if for some reason a DM decides that this portion of the description is flavor and is not actually something that is happening as a result of the origination of the spell effect, then of course they will arrive at a different ruling as to whether or not the attacker is unseen.
It feels like it would be kind of a tough sell to tell a player, "No, the spellcaster does not actually vanish" when the spell description says, "You flourish the weapon used in the casting and then vanish to strike like the wind", but the DM has the final say on such things as always.
What matters for vision is whether or not you're seen at the time you cast the spell. And even then, since the attacks are resolved in order, you only get advantage on the first attack unless you have something granting persistent advantage (such as Greater Invisibility keeping you invisible).
Why are attacks resolved in an order? What order? The spell doesn't say that, nor does it provide for an order.
Mearls, iirc, has said attacks are simultaneous in similar situations (ie, Eldritch Blast).
Also: make up your mind? Either it's determined when the spell is cast (and thus true for all attacks), or its determined for each attack individually. You can't have it both ways. (This is even assuming you're correct about the spell not making you unseen, you can't argue its determined when the spell is cast, but then say 'actually, no, the later attacks don't benefit because you're revealed now'. If it's determined when the spell is cast, then all the attacks are determined then.)
Sage Advice clarified the question of spells making attack rolls against multiple targets here:
When casting a spell that affects multiple targets, such as Scorching Ray or Eldritch Blast, do I fire one ray or beam, determine the result, and fire again? Or do I have to choose all the targets before making any attack rolls?
Even though the duration of each of these spells is instantaneous, you choose the targets and resolve the attacks consecutively, not all at once. If you want, you can declare all your targets before making any attacks, but you would still roll separately for each attack roll (and damage, if appropriate).
Sage Advice clarified the question of spells making attack rolls against multiple targets here:
When casting a spell that affects multiple targets, such as Scorching Ray or Eldritch Blast, do I fire one ray or beam, determine the result, and fire again? Or do I have to choose all the targets before making any attack rolls?
Even though the duration of each of these spells is instantaneous, you choose the targets and resolve the attacks consecutively, not all at once. If you want, you can declare all your targets before making any attacks, but you would still roll separately for each attack roll (and damage, if appropriate).
And Mearls said the opposite. There is no consensus from the designers of the game on it.
I side with Mearls here (and think Sage Advice is simply wrong as a matter of rules). If you upcast hold person, do you choose a target, wait to see their save result, then choose your next target? I don't think so. The general rule is not things are consecutive when it comes to spell targets. The general rule is that they're simultaneous. Similarly, fireball deals damage to all creatures in its AoE simultaneously. If Fireball involved an attack against each creature, those would be simultaneous too. The default for spells is declare all targets, then resolve effects.
(And Sage Advice's additional note on rolling attacks/damage separately is, well, not relevant to the question. Of course each attack and each instance of damage is separate rolls, regardless of whether they are simultaneous or consecutive).
And in SWS's case in particular, since you can teleport adjacent to any target, that suggests the narrative is they all happen at once, because otherwise you should have to teleport adjacent to the last target hit.
And if you are right that they're consecutive, why would you need to choose all 5 targets immediately? It's no different than choosing targets for Eldritch blast. If the choice of targets happens simultaneously, then the hits happen simultaneously. You don't choose targets then make attacks. The choosing of targets and the attacks are simultaneous. (Having been chosen as a target is simultaneous with receiving the attack).
Sage Advice clarified the question of spells making attack rolls against multiple targets here:
When casting a spell that affects multiple targets, such as Scorching Ray or Eldritch Blast, do I fire one ray or beam, determine the result, and fire again? Or do I have to choose all the targets before making any attack rolls?
Even though the duration of each of these spells is instantaneous, you choose the targets and resolve the attacks consecutively, not all at once. If you want, you can declare all your targets before making any attacks, but you would still roll separately for each attack roll (and damage, if appropriate).
And Mearls said the opposite. There is no consensus from the designers of the game on it.
I side with Mearls here (and think Sage Advice is simply wrong as a matter of rules).
It's fine for you to feel that way, and it's fine for you to rule that way when you're DMing, but just keep in mind that what you're saying here is that you think the official rules are wrong about what the official rules are. Sage Advice is part of the official rules; the opinion of a single person who used to work for Wizards of the Coast is not.
The official rules are the rules that are written in the rulebooks.
Here is what Sage Advice says about itself:
Official Rulings
Official rulingson how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium. A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions.
A "ruling" is not the same thing as a "rule". As such, there are no official rules in Sage Advice.
The official rules are the rules that are written in the rulebooks.
Here is what Sage Advice says about itself:
Official Rulings
Official rulingson how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium. A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions.
A "ruling" is not the same thing as a "rule". As such, there are no official rules in Sage Advice.
This has no relevance to the point I was making, but the very next thing after that text does:
The public statements of the D&D team, or anyone else at Wizards of the Coast, are not official rulings; they are advice.
Sage Advice is part of the official rulings. Mike Mearls's opinions are not.
The Sage Advice entry which talks about resolving spell attacks consecutively is mainly just distinguishing how the damage is determined for these spells vs an AoE spell such as Fireball where you make the damage roll once and apply that same damage to all of the targets. Since these are separate attacks, they will have separate damage rolls and some attacks will hit while others will miss. Whether or not you enforce that a spell like Magic Missile declares all targets ahead of time before any damage is resolved or not is sort of beyond the scope and irrelevant to this discussion since in the case of Steel Wind Strike, you cannot target any creature more than once. In a spell like Magic Missile, this matters since your first dart could kill an enemy, so if your subsequent darts were declared to target that same enemy then they would be wasted under that interpretation. Or, in the case of Scorching Ray, your first ray might miss an enemy that is about to die, so if you had declared to only target that enemy once then it survives. These are not considerations when casting Steel Wind Strike.
I'm not sure why it's being proposed that attacks resolving consecutively would matter at all in this case. If you subscribe to the interpretation that the spell makes you unseen prior to any of the attacks and that you reappear after all of the attacks are finished, then all of the attacks would be treated the same way. The attacking creature is not actually Hidden in this case so there is nothing different about resolving the first attack compared to any of the others.
If you insist on an interpretation that ignores the text of the spell description and determine that the attacker can be seen, then Hiding will almost never help you anyway since the moment your location changes en route to making a melee attack you are no longer Hidden anyway (unless you can somehow reach the first enemy from behind three-quarters cover) so again all of the attacks would be treated in the same way.
Really, this detail about how the attack rolls and damage rolls are resolved really doesn't matter for this spell.
No, "vanish" does not give you advantage, and if it did the spell would say that. Taking words that don't have a condition in the rules and giving it one is rules lawyering, that even lawyers don't get to do, a court would toss them out for such shenanigans. If the designers wanted you to have advantage, they would say "you gain the invisible condition and maintain it through all your attacks."
This entire argument is false.
A spell does not have to say that it gives advantage. Spell descriptions can include specific rules as desired, but they otherwise always abide by the general rules of the game. The general rule for Unseen Attackers and Targets already allows for attacking with Advantage when the target of your attack cannot see you. The spell does not have to reiterate that.
Who said anything about giving anybody a condition? I have no idea what you are talking about with any of that.
Maybe the authors didn't want to use the Invisible condition for this purpose. After all, some creatures can see creatures that have the Invisible condition. That's not the mechanic that they were going for. Instead, the authors say that the spellcaster vanishes, so he does.
If the authors didn't want the spellcaster to vanish, then they should not have written it like that. They could have just as easily written the spell as:
"You flourish the weapon used in the casting. Choose up to five creatures you can see within range. Make a melee spell attack against each target. On a hit, a target takes 6d10 force damage.
You can then teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 5 feet of one of the targets you hit or missed."
In that case, the spellcaster would be attacking 5 creatures while in plain sight. Instead, the designers added more to the effect. Prior to making any attacks, the spellcaster vanishes. It is what it is.
Arguments aren't true or false, they exist or don't. Feel free to disregard, but you are not the official arbiter of truth in the universe. It is what you think it to be is my position.
The attacks being resolved in order is affected by the general rule for resolving Simultaneous Effects. You decide the order as the caster (since you're the controller of the effects). All targets are declared before you roll any stacks. But since the spell doesn't say all the attacks are simultaneous (like how Magic Missile states all missiles hit simultaneously) it must be resolved in order.
The attacks being resolved in order is affected by the general rule for resolving Simultaneous Effects. You decide the order as the caster (since you're the controller of the effects). All targets are declared before you roll any stacks. But since the spell doesn't say all the attacks are simultaneous (like how Magic Missile states all missiles hit simultaneously) it must be resolved in order.
But again, why does this detail matter at all in this particular case? It does not change which creatures are hit, nor how much damage they suffer which is the primary focus of this thread. Even if we considered some weird edge case where hitting a particular creature with an attack causes us to become immediately paralyzed or something, that's beyond the scope of this discussion regarding how the attack rolls should be rolled and how much damage should be applied on a hit.
Because the source of being unseen may consider this relevant. Consider that we're using the interpretation that "vanish" in Steel Wind Strike is flavor text and doesn't cause an Unseen Attacker for the sake of that rule in the below, regardless of what your belief in the matter is, because this is to show relevance.
-If the user has the Invisible condition from the Hide action, then casting Steel Wind Strike doesn't break Invisible because there's no verbal component. However, the first attack in sequence would because an attack roll was made.
-If the user has the Invisible condition from the Invisibility spell, then this interpretation would technically break the condition on the casting; however, casting the spell and making the first attack can generally be seen as being simultaneous, meaning either could be the trigger that breaks Invisible and the first attack would get advantage.
-If the user has the Invisible condition from the Greater Invisibility spell, they'd have the Invisible condition for all attacks as it wouldn't break on the same conditions as the Invisibility spell. In such an instance, the order likely doesn't matter.
Basically: By having to resolve the attacks in order, only the first has advantage in any circumstance where making the attack would break the Invisible condition.
So, if i upcast hold person, i get to wait to see if the first target passed its save before choosing the next target? Because that's what that Sage Advice answer says for Eldritch Blast.
Sage Advice has never been considered 'official' in any rules interpretation capacity. Yes, it's "official" in that its from WotC. But we used to make fun of Sage Advice for getting things blatantly wrong, and this feels like one of those. (I see no reason Sage Advice would be any more official than any other designer of the game - it's all just DND designers saying things they never actually wrote into the rules).
If you declare all targets first, then the hits all happen 'simultaneously' in the sense that your status doesn't change between the attacks. You can't have it both ways. Either you declare targets one at a time and make attacks and update status, or you declare all at once and that sets your status for all the attacks. The latter seems far more in keeping with how all other spell effects are handled, unless you want to say that spells like upcast hold person choose targets one at a time and wait to see save results.
The Sage Advice entry which talks about resolving spell attacks consecutively is mainly just distinguishing how the damage is determined for these spells vs an AoE spell such as Fireball where you make the damage roll once and apply that same damage to all of the targets. Since these are separate attacks, they will have separate damage rolls and some attacks will hit while others will miss.
This interpretation that it's sequenced only insofar as you don't literally roll them all at the same time is interesting. Because it means its not 'sequenced' in the sense of breaking hide.
(I agree with the vanished = unseen, but in the alternative, hiding should benefit all the attacks, because you're not seen when you declare the targets and cast the spell. I have no idea how a spell hitting someone up to 30' from you could allow another target up to 60' from that 'see you' to not give you advantage, especially when you're never there where the attack hits. But the hiding rules are just an absolute mess when it comes to making any sort of sense).
Well, this is another matter. I do not read this as flavor text in this particular case for this particular spell. But if for some reason a DM decides that this portion of the description is flavor and is not actually something that is happening as a result of the origination of the spell effect, then of course they will arrive at a different ruling as to whether or not the attacker is unseen.
IMHO the main problem here is that the spell description is poorly worded and that the spell is conceptually stupid. I'm sure that the person that wrote it had great idea with some cool cinematic narrative in their mind when they thought up the spell but it just is very badly adapted to the rules. Nothing in the description of the spell matches well with how the rules usually work.
You have a melee weapon as a material component that then isn't used to make the attacks or affect the attacks or the damage dealt in any way. You make melee spell attacks but the targets doesn't need to be within reach but instead within the spells range. You can affect up to five targets but you only teleport once. You "vanish" without any indication what that means mechanically.
It certainly seems to me that the original idea was that you get to move and attack multiple targets with your weapon but that they realised that dealing just weapon damage would likely be underpowered and that if you would actually teleport from target to target then it could interact quite badly with a lot of other rules/spells and have a big potential to be both overly complicated and overpowered. They just failed to correct the implied narrative to fit with the actual mechanical workings it ended up with.
It feels like it would be kind of a tough sell to tell a player, "No, the spellcaster does not actually vanish" when the spell description says, "You flourish the weapon used in the casting and then vanish to strike like the wind", but the DM has the final say on such things as always.
I'm not sure that it would be such a hard sell tbh. I had a quick look through the spell descriptions in the 2024 PHB (current rules and current spell), the 2014 PHB (rules when it was first published) and the XGtE (book the spell was first published in) and they use the word "vanish" (or a derivative of it) about 30 times. With the exception of the two instances of SWS (that use it in a very undefined way) then every use of the word references a situation where something disappears completely, either because it got moved to a different plane or because it simply stopped existing (like how a Mage Hand "vanishes" if it gets to far away from the caster). None of the situations are situations where something would become invisible.
It feels like it would be kind of a tough sell to tell a player, "No, the spellcaster does not actually vanish" when the spell description says, "You flourish the weapon used in the casting and then vanish to strike like the wind", but the DM has the final say on such things as always.
I'm not sure that it would be such a hard sell tbh. I had a quick look through the spell descriptions in the 2024 PHB (current rules and current spell), the 2014 PHB (rules when it was first published) and the XGtE (book the spell was first published in) and they use the word "vanish" (or a derivative of it) about 30 times. With the exception of the two instances of SWS (that use it in a very undefined way) then every use of the word references a situation where something disappears completely, either because it got moved to a different plane or because it simply stopped existing (like how a Mage Hand "vanishes" if it gets to far away from the caster). None of the situations are situations where something would become invisible.
No one is saying it makes you invisible. It makes you unseen. Indeed, based on their other uses of vanish, you're not even present in the world - you disappear completely for that instant. Kind of definitionally 'unseen', because there's no way to see something that isn't there. You can not like it, but it appears 'vanish' is perfectly well-defined in the rules.
(If you're playing with miniatures, i'd think you'd cast the spell, remove your miniature from the table/world (ie, vanish), make the attack rolls, and then teleport into your final position (re-appear/replace your miniature).)
The narrative seems to be you're moving so fast no one can see you ('vanish to strike like the wind'), which is, well, unseen by definition. But spell mechanics seem to literally remove you from that plane of existence for a brief moment.
The official rules are the rules that are written in the rulebooks.
Here is what Sage Advice says about itself:
Official Rulings
Official rulingson how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium. A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions.
A "ruling" is not the same thing as a "rule". As such, there are no official rules in Sage Advice.
I believe this was in terms of the 2014 SAC before the 2024 SAC was published, but I would think the same principle would apply. Therefore all of the Sage Advice content is Rules as Written. Mike Mearls's, Jeremy Crawford's, or anyone else's statements that didn't getting formalized into the SAC are unofficial and may hint at RAI but are not RAW.
The official rules are the rules that are written in the rulebooks.
Here is what Sage Advice says about itself:
Official Rulings
Official rulingson how to interpret rules are made here in the Sage Advice Compendium. A Dungeon Master adjudicates the game and determines whether to use an official ruling in play. The DM always has the final say on rules questions.
A "ruling" is not the same thing as a "rule". As such, there are no official rules in Sage Advice.
I believe this was in terms of the 2014 SAC before the 2024 SAC was published, but I would think the same principle would apply. Therefore all of the Sage Advice content is Rules as Written. Mike Mearls's, Jeremy Crawford's, or anyone else's statements that didn't getting formalized into the SAC are unofficial and may hint at RAI but are not RAW.
So upcast Hold Person chooses a target, gets the result of the save, chooses the next target, etc...?
Fireball - you choose the order affected enemies make saves and take damage?
I mean, if we want to pretend that is RAW, fine i guess, but if things happen sequentially rather than simultaneously unless something specifically says otherwise, that's going to affect a lot of spells in significant ways. (And ways that make little sense). Sounds like nonsense to me.
I mean, if we want to pretend that is RAW, fine i guess, but if things happen sequentially rather than simultaneously unless something specifically says otherwise, that's going to affect a lot of spells in significant ways. (And ways that make little sense). Sounds like nonsense to me.
I am just passing on a post made by a moderator relating to the rules of this forum. I am not aware of whether or not the quoted statement is still valid. I have not seen anything otherwise.
Regarding the SAC in question, note that the answer is response to spells with attack rolls ("Or do I have to choose all the targets before making any attack rolls?"), not saving throws, so it may not be intended to apply to the spells in your example. It's not explicit whether the response is restricted to spells that involve multiple attack rolls, but that is the implication, at least to me, by the full question being addressed.
There's a very simple reason to assume the "vanish" in the spell's description doesn't give advantage: The spell's description would tell you if it did. It's not rules text, it's just flavor of the spell, or it would tell you to apply advantage to all the attacks made as part of it.
Are you technically not seen for the exact instant of the attacks? Maybe not. But spells do exactly what they say they do, no more, no less. They tell the mechanical function.
What matters for vision is whether or not you're seen at the time you cast the spell. And even then, since the attacks are resolved in order, you only get advantage on the first attack unless you have something granting persistent advantage (such as Greater Invisibility keeping you invisible).
[REDACTED]
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This is not true. The Unseen Attackers and Targets rule is applied at the moment that an attack is made, not at some other moment prior to or after the attack. It doesn't matter if the attack happens to be nested within some sort of Action or Spell or a creature's Turn or anything like that. It only matters whether or not the attacker is seen when the attack is made.
This is not true either. Every attack is evaluated independently based on the circumstances that are present during that attack. It seems like you might be conflating the rules for Hiding with this situation. This attacker is not necessarily hidden. He is simply Unseen during every attack before eventually reappearing in a new location via teleportation.
I disagree with this.
A spell's description will explicitly provide its own rules that apply when the spell effect is originated, but the general rules of the game always apply unless the spell description explicitly creates an exception.
For example, there are a handful of spells in the Basic Rules which explicitly declare that an attacker gains Advantage, such as: Faerie Fire, Foresight, Guiding Bolt, Otto's Irresistible Dance and Shining Smite. The reason why these spells must explicitly declare this Advantage is because there is no general rule that would otherwise apply to those situations. Normally, if you can see a creature, you can simply attack that creature with a normal roll. So, Faerie Fire lights up a target creature so that you can see it. So what? According to the general rules, why should that provide any Advantage? It doesn't. That spell provides Advantage only because the spell explicitly says that it does. A similar effect happens with Guiding Bolt and Shining Smite. Otto's Irresistible Dance causes a creature to dance. Is there any general rule which says that you should have Advantage when attacking a creature that is dancing? No. So, the spell must explicitly declare this.
Now consider the case where I cast Invisibility on myself. Does the Invisibility spell say anything about granting Advantage to my attack rolls? No. But, under normal circumstances will I have Advantage on my next attack roll? Yes. Why is that? Because there is already a general rule that applies to that situation. The rules for the Invisible condition state: "your attack rolls have Advantage". So, the spell description does not need to explicitly state this. It is already covered by the existing general rules.
Likewise, the Steel Wind Strike spell does not have to explicitly declare that attacks are made with Advantage. The general rule for Unseen Attackers and Targets already applies. So, it is enough for the spell to describe an effect which makes the attacker unseen, such as when the attacker vanishes.
Well, this is another matter. I do not read this as flavor text in this particular case for this particular spell. But if for some reason a DM decides that this portion of the description is flavor and is not actually something that is happening as a result of the origination of the spell effect, then of course they will arrive at a different ruling as to whether or not the attacker is unseen.
It feels like it would be kind of a tough sell to tell a player, "No, the spellcaster does not actually vanish" when the spell description says, "You flourish the weapon used in the casting and then vanish to strike like the wind", but the DM has the final say on such things as always.
Why are attacks resolved in an order? What order? The spell doesn't say that, nor does it provide for an order.
Mearls, iirc, has said attacks are simultaneous in similar situations (ie, Eldritch Blast).
Also: make up your mind? Either it's determined when the spell is cast (and thus true for all attacks), or its determined for each attack individually. You can't have it both ways. (This is even assuming you're correct about the spell not making you unseen, you can't argue its determined when the spell is cast, but then say 'actually, no, the later attacks don't benefit because you're revealed now'. If it's determined when the spell is cast, then all the attacks are determined then.)
Sage Advice clarified the question of spells making attack rolls against multiple targets here:
Steel Wind Strike seems like the same kind of thing.
pronouns: he/she/they
And Mearls said the opposite. There is no consensus from the designers of the game on it.
I side with Mearls here (and think Sage Advice is simply wrong as a matter of rules). If you upcast hold person, do you choose a target, wait to see their save result, then choose your next target? I don't think so. The general rule is not things are consecutive when it comes to spell targets. The general rule is that they're simultaneous. Similarly, fireball deals damage to all creatures in its AoE simultaneously. If Fireball involved an attack against each creature, those would be simultaneous too. The default for spells is declare all targets, then resolve effects.
(And Sage Advice's additional note on rolling attacks/damage separately is, well, not relevant to the question. Of course each attack and each instance of damage is separate rolls, regardless of whether they are simultaneous or consecutive).
And in SWS's case in particular, since you can teleport adjacent to any target, that suggests the narrative is they all happen at once, because otherwise you should have to teleport adjacent to the last target hit.
And if you are right that they're consecutive, why would you need to choose all 5 targets immediately? It's no different than choosing targets for Eldritch blast. If the choice of targets happens simultaneously, then the hits happen simultaneously. You don't choose targets then make attacks. The choosing of targets and the attacks are simultaneous. (Having been chosen as a target is simultaneous with receiving the attack).
It's fine for you to feel that way, and it's fine for you to rule that way when you're DMing, but just keep in mind that what you're saying here is that you think the official rules are wrong about what the official rules are. Sage Advice is part of the official rules; the opinion of a single person who used to work for Wizards of the Coast is not.
pronouns: he/she/they
Actually, no it is not.
The official rules are the rules that are written in the rulebooks.
Here is what Sage Advice says about itself:
A "ruling" is not the same thing as a "rule". As such, there are no official rules in Sage Advice.
This has no relevance to the point I was making, but the very next thing after that text does:
Sage Advice is part of the official rulings. Mike Mearls's opinions are not.
pronouns: he/she/they
The Sage Advice entry which talks about resolving spell attacks consecutively is mainly just distinguishing how the damage is determined for these spells vs an AoE spell such as Fireball where you make the damage roll once and apply that same damage to all of the targets. Since these are separate attacks, they will have separate damage rolls and some attacks will hit while others will miss. Whether or not you enforce that a spell like Magic Missile declares all targets ahead of time before any damage is resolved or not is sort of beyond the scope and irrelevant to this discussion since in the case of Steel Wind Strike, you cannot target any creature more than once. In a spell like Magic Missile, this matters since your first dart could kill an enemy, so if your subsequent darts were declared to target that same enemy then they would be wasted under that interpretation. Or, in the case of Scorching Ray, your first ray might miss an enemy that is about to die, so if you had declared to only target that enemy once then it survives. These are not considerations when casting Steel Wind Strike.
I'm not sure why it's being proposed that attacks resolving consecutively would matter at all in this case. If you subscribe to the interpretation that the spell makes you unseen prior to any of the attacks and that you reappear after all of the attacks are finished, then all of the attacks would be treated the same way. The attacking creature is not actually Hidden in this case so there is nothing different about resolving the first attack compared to any of the others.
If you insist on an interpretation that ignores the text of the spell description and determine that the attacker can be seen, then Hiding will almost never help you anyway since the moment your location changes en route to making a melee attack you are no longer Hidden anyway (unless you can somehow reach the first enemy from behind three-quarters cover) so again all of the attacks would be treated in the same way.
Really, this detail about how the attack rolls and damage rolls are resolved really doesn't matter for this spell.
Arguments aren't true or false, they exist or don't. Feel free to disregard, but you are not the official arbiter of truth in the universe. It is what you think it to be is my position.
The attacks being resolved in order is affected by the general rule for resolving Simultaneous Effects. You decide the order as the caster (since you're the controller of the effects). All targets are declared before you roll any stacks. But since the spell doesn't say all the attacks are simultaneous (like how Magic Missile states all missiles hit simultaneously) it must be resolved in order.
But again, why does this detail matter at all in this particular case? It does not change which creatures are hit, nor how much damage they suffer which is the primary focus of this thread. Even if we considered some weird edge case where hitting a particular creature with an attack causes us to become immediately paralyzed or something, that's beyond the scope of this discussion regarding how the attack rolls should be rolled and how much damage should be applied on a hit.
Because the source of being unseen may consider this relevant. Consider that we're using the interpretation that "vanish" in Steel Wind Strike is flavor text and doesn't cause an Unseen Attacker for the sake of that rule in the below, regardless of what your belief in the matter is, because this is to show relevance.
-If the user has the Invisible condition from the Hide action, then casting Steel Wind Strike doesn't break Invisible because there's no verbal component. However, the first attack in sequence would because an attack roll was made.
-If the user has the Invisible condition from the Invisibility spell, then this interpretation would technically break the condition on the casting; however, casting the spell and making the first attack can generally be seen as being simultaneous, meaning either could be the trigger that breaks Invisible and the first attack would get advantage.
-If the user has the Invisible condition from the Greater Invisibility spell, they'd have the Invisible condition for all attacks as it wouldn't break on the same conditions as the Invisibility spell. In such an instance, the order likely doesn't matter.
Basically: By having to resolve the attacks in order, only the first has advantage in any circumstance where making the attack would break the Invisible condition.
So, if i upcast hold person, i get to wait to see if the first target passed its save before choosing the next target? Because that's what that Sage Advice answer says for Eldritch Blast.
Sage Advice has never been considered 'official' in any rules interpretation capacity. Yes, it's "official" in that its from WotC. But we used to make fun of Sage Advice for getting things blatantly wrong, and this feels like one of those. (I see no reason Sage Advice would be any more official than any other designer of the game - it's all just DND designers saying things they never actually wrote into the rules).
If you declare all targets first, then the hits all happen 'simultaneously' in the sense that your status doesn't change between the attacks. You can't have it both ways. Either you declare targets one at a time and make attacks and update status, or you declare all at once and that sets your status for all the attacks. The latter seems far more in keeping with how all other spell effects are handled, unless you want to say that spells like upcast hold person choose targets one at a time and wait to see save results.
This interpretation that it's sequenced only insofar as you don't literally roll them all at the same time is interesting. Because it means its not 'sequenced' in the sense of breaking hide.
(I agree with the vanished = unseen, but in the alternative, hiding should benefit all the attacks, because you're not seen when you declare the targets and cast the spell. I have no idea how a spell hitting someone up to 30' from you could allow another target up to 60' from that 'see you' to not give you advantage, especially when you're never there where the attack hits. But the hiding rules are just an absolute mess when it comes to making any sort of sense).
IMHO the main problem here is that the spell description is poorly worded and that the spell is conceptually stupid. I'm sure that the person that wrote it had great idea with some cool cinematic narrative in their mind when they thought up the spell but it just is very badly adapted to the rules. Nothing in the description of the spell matches well with how the rules usually work.
You have a melee weapon as a material component that then isn't used to make the attacks or affect the attacks or the damage dealt in any way.
You make melee spell attacks but the targets doesn't need to be within reach but instead within the spells range.
You can affect up to five targets but you only teleport once.
You "vanish" without any indication what that means mechanically.
It certainly seems to me that the original idea was that you get to move and attack multiple targets with your weapon but that they realised that dealing just weapon damage would likely be underpowered and that if you would actually teleport from target to target then it could interact quite badly with a lot of other rules/spells and have a big potential to be both overly complicated and overpowered. They just failed to correct the implied narrative to fit with the actual mechanical workings it ended up with.
I'm not sure that it would be such a hard sell tbh. I had a quick look through the spell descriptions in the 2024 PHB (current rules and current spell), the 2014 PHB (rules when it was first published) and the XGtE (book the spell was first published in) and they use the word "vanish" (or a derivative of it) about 30 times. With the exception of the two instances of SWS (that use it in a very undefined way) then every use of the word references a situation where something disappears completely, either because it got moved to a different plane or because it simply stopped existing (like how a Mage Hand "vanishes" if it gets to far away from the caster). None of the situations are situations where something would become invisible.
No one is saying it makes you invisible. It makes you unseen. Indeed, based on their other uses of vanish, you're not even present in the world - you disappear completely for that instant. Kind of definitionally 'unseen', because there's no way to see something that isn't there. You can not like it, but it appears 'vanish' is perfectly well-defined in the rules.
(If you're playing with miniatures, i'd think you'd cast the spell, remove your miniature from the table/world (ie, vanish), make the attack rolls, and then teleport into your final position (re-appear/replace your miniature).)
The narrative seems to be you're moving so fast no one can see you ('vanish to strike like the wind'), which is, well, unseen by definition. But spell mechanics seem to literally remove you from that plane of existence for a brief moment.
Funny thing.
"For the purpose of discussions in the Rules & Game Mechanics forum, SAC is considered RAW. That has been true since it was published, and the clarification I have received is that is still considered RAW for 2024 rules discussions." - Moderator Sillvva on another thread.
I believe this was in terms of the 2014 SAC before the 2024 SAC was published, but I would think the same principle would apply. Therefore all of the Sage Advice content is Rules as Written. Mike Mearls's, Jeremy Crawford's, or anyone else's statements that didn't getting formalized into the SAC are unofficial and may hint at RAI but are not RAW.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
So upcast Hold Person chooses a target, gets the result of the save, chooses the next target, etc...?
Fireball - you choose the order affected enemies make saves and take damage?
I mean, if we want to pretend that is RAW, fine i guess, but if things happen sequentially rather than simultaneously unless something specifically says otherwise, that's going to affect a lot of spells in significant ways. (And ways that make little sense). Sounds like nonsense to me.
I am just passing on a post made by a moderator relating to the rules of this forum. I am not aware of whether or not the quoted statement is still valid. I have not seen anything otherwise.
Regarding the SAC in question, note that the answer is response to spells with attack rolls ("Or do I have to choose all the targets before making any attack rolls?"), not saving throws, so it may not be intended to apply to the spells in your example. It's not explicit whether the response is restricted to spells that involve multiple attack rolls, but that is the implication, at least to me, by the full question being addressed.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.