If a spell has a range of touch, like Remove Curse and a player wants to use it on an enemy how do you handle it? Do you require a “to hit” even though the spell doesn’t require one? A save? Again the spell doesn’t say you get one 

We had a situation where we were fighting someone who was cursed (the reason they were hostile to us) and a player wanted to use remove curse and we weren’t sure how to handle it. It was decided that since it was a hostile target a to hit roll was needed since they were defending themselves. 

Just curious if this was a good call or if it could have or should have been handled differently. 

It was a good call. Most spells that require touching an enemy will either use a melee spell attack (armor protects against the touch) or a Dexterity saving throw (armor doesn't help.) See Inflict Wounds and Light for examples.

In a few cases the designers wanted a specific saving throw to be what matters most and assume the touch automatically succeeds (e.g. Bestow Curse) or the spell requires both an attack and a save (Dispel Evil and Good.) But since Remove Curse has no save these examples aren't very relevant.

The bottom line is hostile creatures should get a chance to avoid a harmful action. Remove Curse is normally beneficial so it's written under the assumption the target won't try to avoid it, like Cure Wounds.

Should just have to be within range. Spells (with range of touch) that require an attack roll say so.

Thanks for the responses. 

Funny, but not unexpected, that the first two responses have two conflicting answers, lol. That’s why I thought to ask here as that was the very same discussion we had during the game. 

No one was upset with the final decision during the game but wanted to get other more experienced advice. 

Yes it is something missing in the rules. It can be handelled a number of different ways, but I agree with coder that to cast a spell with a range of touch (rather than 5 ft) requires you to touch the target and if the target is unwilling some sort of check needs to be madebut their ar a number of options, I would allow the caster to decide how they want to attempt the contact

• Grapple, as a grapple is one way you can "touch" a creature against their will it works as a check for this
• Normal Attack basically an unarmed strike casting the spell at the instant of contact
• Slight of hand trying to touch the target without them noticing, this is much easier if the player has access to subtle spell.  I would probably rule, disadvantage if the target is a caster as from the Verbal / somantic components they know what you are casting and advantage with subtle spell as you don't have any V/S components to notice.

Considering this is the rules forums - DxJxC is correct. If you cast it and you're close enough - it just works - RAW. If it required a check for unwilling targets it would say so.

That said - it makes sense to require some form of check when the target doesn't want you to do it.

Quote from Emmber >>

Considering this is the rules forums - DxJxC is correct. If you cast it and you're close enough - it just works - RAW. If it required a check for unwilling targets it would say so.

That said - it makes sense to require some form of check when the target doesn't want you to do it.

 Yeah, basically this. There is definitely nothing wrong with calling for a roll (I probably would have asked for a spell attack roll myself).

Quote from Emmber >>

Considering this is the rules forums - DxJxC is correct. If you cast it and you're close enough - it just works - RAW. If it required a check for unwilling targets it would say so.

That said - it makes sense to require some form of check when the target doesn't want you to do it.

 I still think the rules are not clear it says the range is touch but I am nbot aware of any rule that says whether or not you can touch an unwilling creature within your reach without some sort of check.
If the range was 5 foot or (your characters reach) then I would agree no check required (at least RAW).

Quote from Jegpeg >>

Quote from Emmber >>

Considering this is the rules forums - DxJxC is correct. If you cast it and you're close enough - it just works - RAW. If it required a check for unwilling targets it would say so.

That said - it makes sense to require some form of check when the target doesn't want you to do it.

 I still think the rules are not clear it says the range is touch but I am not aware of any rule that says whether or not you can touch an unwilling creature within your reach without some sort of check.
If the range was 5 foot or (your characters reach) then I would agree no check required (at least RAW).

 There are touch spells meant to be used against enemies though.

Bestow curse, contagion, inflict wounds, plane shift, shocking grasp, light

Most call for melee attacks, but not all. And among the other touch spells, there are plenty that say the creature must be willing. Remove curse does not say that the creature must be willing, nor does it say an attack/save is required if they aren't.

I would have also called for an attack roll.

I would have called for an attack roll as well. If you try to touch an unwilling target, there needs to be some mechanism of determining whether the person trying to touch, or trying to avoid the touch, succeeds. One should not be able to just "narrate a success" against the will of another character.

I also think it is silly that you can both touch and impose a spell effect on an enemy without either you or the enemy passing some sort of check. Narratively speaking it doesn't make any sense. But according to Jeremy Crawford, it is RAI:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sageadvice.eu/2020/08/20/jump-and-lesser-restoration-are-spells-with-range-of-touch-but-require-no-attack-roll-and-have-no-saving-throw-so-if-i-cast-them-through-my-familiar-on-an-enemy-do-they-just-happen/amp/

Jeremy's not saying it's intended, just confirming that's the RAW in 5e. So DxJxC is right in that the rules don't call for any roll, but it's also unlikely the rules writers actually wanted the spell to automatically succeed on a hostile creature. It's more likely they forgot to address this or simply didn't deem it important enough to clutter up the spell's rules.

Previous editions did have general rules for attempting to touch an unwilling creature, so a spell like Remove Curse or Cure Wounds didn't need text for handling that situation. One of the design goals for 5e was to keep the core rules as small as possible, so the general rules for touching enemies were removed. Plus, 5e's designers lean towards keeping each individual feature on the simpler side and letting the DM handle unimportant edge cases. So they would've had to remember to address unwilling targets in every beneficial touch spell and deemed that an important enough corner case to clutter up that spell's rules.

Either way, both the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide say that when there's a chance of failure, there should be a d20 roll to resolve it. So if the DM thinks the target has a chance to avoid being touched, calling for an attack roll or saving throw is justified.

As pointed out, RAW it can just be done but I wouldn't mind if my DM demanded some sort of roll. It's one of these situations where the rules doesn't really cover it, kind of like polymorph-pranking. If the target of polymorph is willing, no aving throw is required. So let's say I tell you that I'm going to turn you into a mammoth but I'm really turning you into a slug. Would you still get a save?

True, Crawford didn't explicitly say that it was RAI. That was my interpretation since he often clarifies when something is RAW but not RAI. Seeing as he did not mention it in this case I assumed he stood by the mechanic from both a RAW and RAI standpoint as the Lead Rules Designer. That being said, the ruling doesn't make sense IMO.

I think it's fairly safe to assume it's RAI because otherwise it should have been errata'd by now to be more in-line with other touch spells that do require some form of attack roll or saving throw or require the target to be willing.

• Sanctuary and Invisibility can be bypassed with non-spell save-based abilities like Radiant Sun Bolt. Later features like the Fade Away feat close the loophole.
• The Bard's Jack of All Trades was only intended to apply to ability checks that use skills and tools (Jeremy mentioned this on the Dragon+ podcast so I don't have a link handy.)
• The Lucky feat has the well-known "super advantage" loophole. This was one's even been officially addressed in Sage Advice.
• Heavy Armor Master still says "nonmagical weapons" instead of "nonmagical attacks".
• Hand Crossbows still have the completely useless light property.

And then there's things that weren't addressed until the Nov 2018 errata, over 4 years after the Player's Handbook release, and were probably only addressed because of the big 10th printing/gift set of the core books:

• Grappling and shoving incapacitated creatures.
• The Polymorph + Disintegrate combo.
• Using True Polymorph to turn creatures into magic items.
• The last bullet point of the Dungeon Delver feat which implied you could only search for traps when traveling at a slow pace even though there's no such rule.

Quote from InquisitiveCoder >>

• Sanctuary and Invisibility can be bypassed with non-spell save-based abilities like Radiant Sun Bolt. Later features like the Fade Away feat close the loophole.

 I don't know about the rest, but abilities like Radiant Sun Bolt, Grapple and other special attacks are attacks. Not rolling to hit does not disqualify them from this category. Or did you mean that Fade Away introduced the current wording of the linked spells?

Whoops, I meant Searing Sunburst, not Radiant Sun Bolt. The Way of the Four Elements' disciplines like Water Whip or Fist of Unbroken Air will do the trick too. These are neither attacks nor spells, so you can technically use them while invisible, and the single-target features also bypass Sanctuary's protection.

In previous editions the word "attack" covered just about every offensive action, so when 5e redefined the term to mean something with an attack roll, they likely forgot to adjust those spells accordingly. The Fade Away feat mostly closes the loophole by disallowing dealing damage or forcing a creature to make a saving throw, which rules out almost every offensive action short of rare no-save abilities like the Power Word spells.

It's clear they realized the old criteria of "attack or cast a spell" was far from ideal but not broken enough to warrant errata, so instead they just use improved rules in new features. They've done this with other game elements as well, like using temp HP for Mass Polymorph to fix the weird interactions that polymorphing has with spells like Sleep or Power Word Kill, but leaving the old "replace your HP" mechanic intact in the original Polymorph spell and Wild Shape.

Anyways the point is that if something isn't working as intended but also isn't significantly broken or affecting a lot of players, the game's designers will simply leave it alone rather than issuing an overwhelming amount of minor errata.