5e Spiritual Weapon only deducts slot when it rolls damage

Sorry, can't find any guidance on this. When the 5e Spiritual Weapon spell is dragged from the Compendium onto the OGL sheet with automatic spell slot deductions, it doesn't actually deduct the spell slot used unless you click in chat for a damage roll (as if you had hit your target). Then when rolling damage it asks for the level you want to cast at and deducts the spell slot. We don't have auto-roll-damage on, so if the spell's To Hit misses the target, no one clicks for damage, and the spell slot is never deducted. Obviously we can just try to remember to deduct the spell slot manually, but that's a bit of a pain if this could be automated. I think the weirdness is because it doesn't ask what level you cast it at until you go to roll damage, so maybe there is some way to fix this. For subsequent attacks using the same instance of SW, we typically use a second custom spell with the innate field filled in so that it does not tick down any spell slots for subsequent attacks.  Am I missing something here, or anyone know a simple trick to get it to ask what level you're casting it at and tick down the spell slot when initially cast, whether you roll damage or not?

Hi Joel, The level query is in the damage portion of the attack. That query is used to determine the amount of damage being done. There is no query for that in the attack portion. The Mod (API Script) is going off the level query to deduct the appropriate level. As a result, the very first attack you make must contain the damage or it will not deduct the spell.  There is no bug here, just a consequence of the design of the sheet when combined with a script.  The solution here is to always roll damage that first attack. Or to switch to always rolling damage rather than rolling them separately. An alternate solution is to use a macro instead, one that deducts the spell slot. But I think remembering to always roll damage on the first attack is easier. 

I was thinking maybe there is a clever way that people are addressing it, like maybe re-writing the spell description so that the spell itself no longer registers as an Attack, but rather outputs the spell card, maybe with some inline rolls or buttons the player could click, but I haven't tried to do any of that yet myself. Or some other "hack" that makes it behave a little differently. I wasn't thinking of it so much as a "bug" as just maybe there's one of those little tweaks people have learned to make for quality of life improvements. If so, I'd like to learn a tweak for it myself,

Yes, you can resolve this by switching to spellcard then using the attack button. I apologize for not presenting that option, I was thinking you wanted to keep it rolling the attack to start.  Yes, the spellcard could then have a Chat Menu button to press that initial attack.  If you would like help setting that up I would be happy to do so. 

If you've got the time and inclination to walk me through it, that'd be great. Otherwise I'll try to brute-force-dummy my way through it next week. If there is a tried and true method, I'm pretty decent at copy/paste. Thank you, either way.

1) Edit Spiritual Weapon Switch from Attack to Spellcard.  2) Create new level 2 spell Copy/paste everything from Spiritual Weapon to new spell.  Reason: Switching from Attack to Spellcard causes a bug, the only workaround is starting with a new spell.  3) Delete original Spiritual Weapon spell 4) Go to the manually created Spiritual Weapon attack  (not spell).  Drag the attack to the bottom of your character sheet. This will create a button.  Click on the button. It will make an attack.  Click on the Chat box in the Chat tab (place you type).  Click the up arrow on your keyboard. This will display something like this: %{yourcharactername|repeating_attack_-O2BGZhLmSOm3zbGMIHi_attack} Copy that 5) Go back to the new Spiritual Weapon spell and edit it. In the description put the following: [Spiritual Weapon Attack](~paste the copy from above) It will look like this: [Spiritual Weapon Attack](~%{ yourcharactername |repeating_attack_-O2BGZhLmSOm3zbGMIHi_attack}) Next, remove the %{} symbols so it looks like this:  [Spiritual Weapon Attack](~ yourcharactername |repeating_attack_-O2BGZhLmSOm3zbGMIHi_attack) Close the edit and test 6) To remove the button from the bar hover over the button. On the right side a tab will appear. Grab the tab and pull the button upwards off the bar to get rid of it.