Magic Missile specifies simultaneous damage - Scorching Ray does not.
Scorching ray isn't damaging them all at once, it's doing it on different attacks. The rule doesn't apply. As I already stated in the bit of my post you quoted.
Magic missile also doesn't have attack rolls. It doesn't even have a saving throw. But it does do damage simultaneously to all the targets, as specified in the spell itself. That's the important bit, since there is a rule specifically for spells that do that. Most of them are AoE spells, but Magic Missile is an exception - mainly because they wanted it to act like the iconic version of the spell which automatically hit. (In 4th edition you had to make attack rolls with Magic Missile.)
In this edition, Magic Missile is kind of a unique spell in that is targeted, but also acts like an AoE in some ways.
Let me make a point about the bolded part.
There is no "rule" about one damage roll for "simultaneous" damage.
All that rule says is "at the same time" not specifically "simultaneous."
is this persnickety - sure but here is the point... the sage rulings in this case and in others are often persnickety on specific single world or pairs of word combos.
if the one damage roll rule said "simultaneous" then absolutely, we would look for all spells which say "simultaneous."
But, instead we have ONE CASE where the word simultaneous is in a spell and is ruled as sufficient for the one roll even tho the spell says each dart does d4+1 to "its target."
The other pairing of persnickety words and clauses we could have used is "instantaneous". You could just as easily paired "at the same time" and "instantaneous" to be the magic words that invoke the one roll rule.
But instead we got this "simultaneous" rule.
here is my problem with the ruling...
So what about acid splash?
Not one part of acid splash says "simultaneous."
Not one part of acid splash says it is an Area spell. It is a select your targets spell.
Its not an attack roll spells - tho attack roll is not required or disallowed as far as one roll rule goes - it just requires multiple targets "at the same time" (and accoring to twitter now that requires the word simultaneous.
So, does acid splash meet the requirements of the one damage roll rule now that we know "similtaneous" is the key word for "at the same time"?
We could get into the large number of other "nowhere mentions simultaneous" pick-yer-targets spells and especially all the cases with twinned but simply put the ruling raises more questions than it answers by it keying on "simultaneous" and not on something like "instantaneous."
Its by no means game breaking either way but when you have an easy 2-4 different "link these towo to get answer" possibilities its not good to choose the one which leaves more questions and generates more new questions than the others.
Again this is coming from a generally favorable supporter of the Sage advice and rulings.
