Containing the monster manual

[Pesimismrocks]

My party is looking to build a menagerie. We have the land and acquiring the magical beasts is at least something we can deal being adventurers. The question is how to contain them.

Specifically Basilisks, Cockatrices and Rust Monsters look to be problematic but displacer beasts and other creatures with a ranged attack will be annoying too. For gaze attacks we could just use opaque walls but the idea is that we could study them as well as allowing the public to use them. What can we build the walls of the enclosures out of so the animals can't attack out or escape? Ethereal jaunt seems to be unavoidable as a hazard. Although we have access to spellcasting we are trying to keep high level spells to a minimum. Low level spells on the other hand we have in bundles.

How would you go about running it? In the end were going to be trying to hold a few specimens of every non humanoid in mm1 in our zoo.

[Belzyk]

Just have the living areas have anti magic fields or a suppression field of some sorts.

[Tiri]

Antimagic Field might prove to be problematic, since the most it will last is a couple of days before you have to go back in and recast it, exposing yourself to the dangers of gaze attacks and such all over again. Maybe you could build some sort of enclosure with an area allowing you to cover it completely with AMFs cast from points outside the enclosure. Or hire a 10th-level Eldritch Theurge to do it from afar.

[Deadline]

A few suggestions:

Gaze attack creatures - Use mirrors to observe them. Alternatively, use an enclosure where the observer will always be out of the gaze attack range.

Rust Monsters - Use stone enclosures, not metal.

Incorporeal - I think walls of force block incorporeal or ethereal creatures, so maybe an enclosure made of riverine?

[Tiri]

Incorporeal - I think walls of force block incorporeal or ethereal creatures, so maybe an enclosure made of riverine?

Or you could just make the walls too thick for them.

[Belzyk]

Antimagic Field might prove to be problematic, since the most it will last is a couple of days before you have to go back in and recast it, exposing yourself to the dangers of gaze attacks and such all over again. Maybe you could build some sort of enclosure with an area allowing you to cover it completely with AMFs cast from points outside the enclosure. Or hire a 10th-level Eldritch Theurge to do it from afar.

nope automatic resetting Antimagic Field Trap.

[Flickerdart]

All teleportation effects rely on the transitive planes to function. If your menagerie is somewhere that doesn't have access to the Ethereal, Astral, and Shadow planes, then your critters can't get out.

[Gildedragon]

A spellclock of Antimagic Field

Antimagic shackles (BoEF)

Riverine bars to the cages OR hollow adamantine bars with serrenwood cores

Ghostwall Shelack or Ghostoil covered bars

Examination via scrying or a portal (iirc gaze attacks don't cross planar boundaries)

There is also the diplomatic route: convince the creatures that participating in the menagerie secures them a better life

[Chewychunga]

Force wall or riverine come to mind because force also effects ethereal creatures you could even keep ghosts if you sealed it
Might need a bottle of air or something if it's completely sealed tho

[Deadline]

Or you could just make the walls too thick for them.

That runs into the problem of not being able to observe the creatures.

[Belzyk]

Or you know demiontonal anchor with a spell clock