The eldritch invocation beast speech allows you to cast speak with animals at will. Would it still be a ritual spell or coukd we just assume the warlock is always able to talk to animals without them saying they cast it?
The Ritual feature of spells is always optional; it extends the casting time of the spell by ten minutes, and in exchange the spell does not use up a slot. The normal casting time for Speak with Animals is one Action, while choosing to cast it as a ritual would take ten minutes.
Now, a Warlock with Beast Speech can always cast that spell without using a spell slot, so they would never cast it as a ritual. It could be cast at any time, without wasting ten minutes.
For convenience then, it would be fastest to assume that the Warlock always has the spell active (they could auto-cast it every few minutes), but certain things might prevent it being active; if the party is trying to sneak silently then the verbal component would make too much noise, if the Warlock is invisible then they would not want to end that just for Beast Speech, if stuck in a Silence spell or similar then it cannot be cast, trying to avoid attracting attention in a place where spellcasting is illegal, a dispel Magic effect would end it until re-cast, and so on.
The same shortcut could be used for Armor of Shadows, Eldritch Sight, Fiendish Vigor, Mask of Many Faces or Master of Myriad Forms (if they have a default form they always want to have active), Otherworldly Leap, Shroud of Shadow, and Whispers of the Grave. Though some of the spells associated need concentration, so the Warlock would need to make some choices what they want to be active when.
Everything Correon said is correct. I just want to point out that warlocks are not inherently ritual casters (without book of ancient secrets invocation), so they wouldn't be able to cast it as a ritual even if they wanted.
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The eldritch invocation beast speech allows you to cast speak with animals at will. Would it still be a ritual spell or coukd we just assume the warlock is always able to talk to animals without them saying they cast it?
The Ritual feature of spells is always optional; it extends the casting time of the spell by ten minutes, and in exchange the spell does not use up a slot. The normal casting time for Speak with Animals is one Action, while choosing to cast it as a ritual would take ten minutes.
Now, a Warlock with Beast Speech can always cast that spell without using a spell slot, so they would never cast it as a ritual. It could be cast at any time, without wasting ten minutes.
For convenience then, it would be fastest to assume that the Warlock always has the spell active (they could auto-cast it every few minutes), but certain things might prevent it being active; if the party is trying to sneak silently then the verbal component would make too much noise, if the Warlock is invisible then they would not want to end that just for Beast Speech, if stuck in a Silence spell or similar then it cannot be cast, trying to avoid attracting attention in a place where spellcasting is illegal, a dispel Magic effect would end it until re-cast, and so on.
The same shortcut could be used for Armor of Shadows, Eldritch Sight, Fiendish Vigor, Mask of Many Faces or Master of Myriad Forms (if they have a default form they always want to have active), Otherworldly Leap, Shroud of Shadow, and Whispers of the Grave. Though some of the spells associated need concentration, so the Warlock would need to make some choices what they want to be active when.
Everything Correon said is correct. I just want to point out that warlocks are not inherently ritual casters (without book of ancient secrets invocation), so they wouldn't be able to cast it as a ritual even if they wanted.