What happens to the equipment of Phantom Steed when the spell ends?

Question

The spell Phantom Steed lets you summon a horse-like creature. It says:

You decide the creature's appearance, but it is equipped with a saddle, bit, and bridle. Any of the equipment created by the spell vanishes in a puff of smoke if it is carried more than 10 feet away from the steed. [...] When the spell ends, the steed gradually fades, giving the rider 1 minute to dismount.

So the equipment is not part of the steed, otherwise it could not vanish when carried away from the steed, while the steed persists. There however is no mention of the equipment vanishing when the spell ends. Will it remain?

Answer 1

The text is unclear, leaving room for exploits.

As you've said, there's no clear explanation on what happens to the equipment when the steed vanishes. While the heavily implied solution would be that it also vanishes alongside the steed, the rule text as written doesn't mention it at all.

Let's analyse it a bit further. The one condition given for the equipment to vanish is the following, emphasis mine :

Any of the equipment created by the spell vanishes in a puff of smoke if it is carried more than 10 feet away from the steed.

As a side note, if we twist the text even further, the equipment could technically be more than 10 feet away from the steed while the steed is still active, as long as it isn't carried. For example, placing it down on the ground, then taking the steed somewhere else wouldn't make it vanish. Picking it up at any point while the steed is away would instantly make it vanish though.

Back to our main question. As written, the equipment won't vanish as long as it isn't being carried away from the steed. So then, what about when the steed vanishes? The condition for the equipment vanishing is a distance condition. However, the steed simply stops existing. The summon isn't an entity or creature from another plane, so they don't even return to some other plane when the spell ends, they simply disappear.

As there is no definition of "distance with something that doesn't exist", the text can be interpreted in many ways :

• Distance is infinite : carrying the equipment will make it vanish.
• We use the last position of the steed : you can move the equipment in a 10-feet circle around this position.
• The distance is undefined : you can carry the equipment anywhere without it vanishing.

Of course, this isn't intended.

It's up to the DM to decide of what interpretation they want to go with. The most natural, and very likely intended, effect is that the equipment vanishes alongside the steed, but if a DM wants to rule otherwise using the above, they're free to do so.

Answer 2

It is implied it vanishes with it

As the spell says:

Any of the equipment created by the spell vanishes in a puff of smoke if it is carried more than 10 feet away from the steed.

And the saddle and such:

it is equipped with a saddle, bit, and bridle

So, by definition, the saddle, bit and bridle are equipment, since they are equipped. When the steed vanishes, the equipment should also vanish with it. The spell doesn't state the gear is left behind or anything, and since the steed is gone, so should be those items since that is what happens if they're carried more than 10 feet away.

Answer 3

It is likely to fade together with the steed.

When the spell ends, the horselike creature fades out and it does actually seem that the equipment remains there. Moreover, the steed does not seem to be summoned from another plane of existence (e.g., the Feywild); it is just a spell effect, so you can not reason ( i.e., adopt a particular ruling) about planes distance.

Per the quoted rules, the equipment vanishes if carried away\$^\dagger\$ more than 10 feet from the steed: this implies that the equipment is strongly tied to the creature, even if it is not part of it, as already observed in the original question. The question is: if we assume that the equipment remains once the creature fades out, what is the distance between the creature not existing anymore and the equipment? I see three possible interpretations:

1. The creature is now at a point at infinity: the distance is infinite, hence more than 10 feet, hence the equipment disappears.
2. The "coordinates" of the creature are the ones where it faded out: as soon as the equipment is moved more than 10 feet away from that point, it vanishes.

A third interpretation, instead, relies on the magical tie between the horselike creature and the equipment: when the spell ends, everything created by it disappears. This is more coherent with the spell's school: Illusion spells create effects that affect creatures\$^\ddagger\$, but they all have a limited duration.

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\$^\dagger\$ Carry away here means to remove: see for example the definition in the Collins dictionary.

\$^\ddagger\$ See Illusory Dragon (XGtE, page 157), Creation (PHB, page 229), Mirage Arcane (PHB, page 260), among others.

Answer 4

The vast majority of people will assume that the magically-created saddle disappears with the magically-created horse.

This is also 99.9% likely to be what the creator(s) of the spell intended.

Even if you assume otherwise and take an overly-anal reading of the text, it disappears the first time anyone 'carries' it.

If the horse is gone the gear is more than 10' from the horse. As per this line

Any of the equipment created by the spell vanishes in a puff of smoke if it is carried more than 10 feet away from the steed.

If anyone carries the gear, aka picks it up, moves it, places it on the back of another horse (then the horse is carrying it), it disappears in a puff of smoke.

So it can sit there on the ground but if you or anyone else picks it up and moves it it turns into smoke. Not a particularly useful saddle bridle and bit.