If a Beast Master ranger's animal companion has the awaken spell cast on it, does the ranger still need to spend an action to command it to attack?
Acting on their own accord, the druid and ranger of my party decided to buy the 1000 gp agate and cast awaken on the Beast Master ranger's wolf companion. Now the wolf has an Int score of 10 and speaks in a British accent (don't ask… I at least forbade the monocle).
They argued that the wolf is now basically an NPC and can think for himself, and therefore it can attack on its own. Is their argument wrong, or does it hold water?
Best Answer
Yes, it requires an action, but...
Ignoring the Charm effect, as you mentioned, the wolf, regardless of intelligence, is still subject to the rules of the Animal Companion feature. That means that the wolf still requires an action to order it to attack and I would impose that. (Beastmaster ranger is, in my opinion, weaker than Hunter ranger, so you might want to weigh out how much damage it would actually be adding, but RAW, yes it would still require an action.)
However, I would argue that, so long as your Ranger already has the Extra Attack feature, the wolf can act on its on, on the Ranger's turn as it previously did--the only difference being that your Ranger no longer has to verbally command it (personally I find that a fair trade-off for 1000 GP, but mechanically that is your decision).
However, remind the players that they need to take caution with how they treat their awakened wolf friend--according to the text of the Awaken spell, you could still impose the ability of the wolf to leave the party if you so chose. However, since you mentioned ignoring the Charm effect due to Animal Companion, I don't know how that would work out; it might be more of a plot device than anything.
TL;DR, I think your players have a legitimate argument, but I would keep the rules of the combat the same so you don't have to roll extra initiative counts or anything (WoTC always likes to point out that rolling more dice is usually bad, because it makes a combat slower). You could however, add the bonus that the Wolf doesn't need to be verbally commanded (it still uses one of the ranger's attacks, and attacks on his turn though).