Best creatures to keep "on tap"

[Jowgen]

Keeping certain kinds of monster around, purely because having them alive can offer some benefit, isn't a new idea.

Creatures with regen, like trolls or the tarrasque, have been the subject of many burger-chain schemes.

Lots of necromantically inclined casters look for a Slaymate to carry around for that metamagic cost reduction.

Having a Midgard Dwarf chained up in your sweatshop takes care of all them spell prerequesites for crafting.

And of course monsters can be a good source of resources like poisons and whatnot.

So I am wondering, what do you think are some of the best creatures to keep "on tap"?

Creatures that you can keep perma-unconscious are preferred, but locked up and forced into servitude somehow ones are also valid.

[Venger]

Euphoric imp's lots of fun, and you probably won't have to try that hard to keep him hanging out in your basement so you can milk him as long as you provide him with a futon and plenty of doritos

[Vizzerdrix]

A swarm of clockwork menders can heal constructs. And skiurids make nuts that necromancers would love to snack on.

[TheCount]

rustmonster, for the time you absolutely need to destroy a metal item (there is also a "rusting wand" in one of the books, thats just a small rustmonster in a cage on a stick (ir in a stick?))

If you wanna start a thief's guild the clock spider is nice, and i just love the sorting beast (i would want one, if i worked in a mediaval bank....)!

[Particle_Man]

Can you stack the benefits from Slaymates, btw? Like have four of them for free quickened necromancy spells?

Oh, and on topic: green slime and brown mold. The latter if they use fire to stop the former. This stuff is cheap as houses!

[jintoya]

Just about any giant spider to produce silk and venom

Pixies for pixie dust

Rust Drake is like a rust monster, but flies

Unicorn + make whole (or regenerative magic, depending on DM ruling) for the horn (this won't work in my campaigns, mine are magic-proof)

Psudonatural creature for any number of alchemical ingredients.

[Venger]

what is pixie dust? what book is it in?

[jintoya]

what is pixie dust? what book is it in?

Oh jeez, I can't exactly recall what the source book was, but it's the dust off their wings, it causes an item to become temporarily weightless as if levitate had been cast on it, a single application can float a medium creature for....I don't remember the duration.

I'm on the boat right now, but I'll look into it when I get home.

[Venger]

Oh jeez, I can't exactly recall what the source book was, but it's the dust off their wings, it causes an item to become temporarily weightless as if levitate had been cast on it, a single application can float a medium creature for....I don't remember the duration.

I'm on the boat right now, but I'll look into it when I get home.

I found pixie dust in AEG, but it shrinks and charms you, it doesn't levitate you. Sure, no rush. I'd be interested to learn where this pixie dust is. sounds like a useful item, especially on tap.

[jintoya]

I found pixie dust in AEG, but it shrinks and charms you, it doesn't levitate you. Sure, no rush. I'd be interested to learn where this pixie dust is. sounds like a useful item, especially on tap.

Fair warning, I've been a DM for a while now, and there is a chance that I house-ruled it to do what it does in lore.
I use allot of Fey in my worlds, so this is possible.

Another one would be the cockatrice for it's petrification cure
(Cockatrice saliva cures petrification so they can eat you)
(And depending on if you're running the one with a gaze or breath weapon, you can bottle it's breath weapon gas)
Edit:
In 4e and 5e pixie dust grants you a temporary fly speed as if fly had been cast, this appears to also be true in Pathfinder, but I don't have the books, so I'm not well read on it.
I must have house ruled it at some point.
But I forgot (ha!) About the memory erasing arrows that a pixie gets, you could use that.

Another one would be a dragon for scales or... Just about anything that falls off it honestly.

Green slime is technically a plant, but I'll list it here

Any of the [color] mold

Displacer beast parts keep the displacement effect, so claws and teeth, maybe even blood could be useful.

[Thurbane]

Elysian Thrush in a cage, for healing.

Necrosis Carnex to keep your Undead in tip-top shape.

[jintoya]

How did I forget the classic one: a genie

Giant scorpion could be used for an antivenin factory given how much venom they produce.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Regular elementals. Earth, fire, air, water and heart. Every one of them is incredibly useful for utility purposes, as well as for lots of other things.

Psicrystals. So many uses they need their own handbook. (3.5, not PF. The PF ones have been beaten repeatedly with the nerf stick and aren't really worth bothering with.)

[DrMotives]

Regular elementals. Earth, fire, air, water and heart. Every one of them is incredibly useful for utility purposes, as well as for lots of other things.


For that matter, irregular elementals as well. There was something in a module published somewhere about a bound ice para-elemental in a small box, that powered a walk-in freezer. Notes that if the box was broken, the elemental would be free, and insane with rage.

[Anthrowhale]

It's absurd, but Sertrous's "Poisoner's Breath" is a nice ability to have on hand when dealing with certain high level challenges.

[radthemad4]

Imps for commune (1/week)
Rejkars for Fabricate (at will), Heroes Feast (3 of them together can cast it once/week)
Thoqqua for making tunnels (SRD doesn't mention this, but MM does)
Bar-L-Gura for greater teleport at will
Spell-like Abilities: At will - aid, consecrate, continual flame, create food and water, death ward, detect evil, discern lies, prayer, protection from arrows; 3/day - atonement, bless weapon, cure serious wounds, daylight, divination, ethereal jaunt, hallow, holy smite, neutralize poison, plane shift, remove curse, remove disease, remove fear; 1/day - commune, raise dead. Caster level 9th; save DC 14 + spell level.
Prescience (Su): At will and as a free action, a weird can duplicate the effect of any of the following divination spells: analyze dweomer clairaudience/clairvoyance, contact other plane, detect thoughts, discern location, find the path, foresight, greater scrying, legend lore, locate creature, locate object, tongues, true seeing, vision. Caster level 18th; save DC 16 + spell level.

[The Viscount]

Vasuthant from MMIII can force rerolls 3 times per day. They're only 2 HD undead so if so inclined you could rebuke a whole host of them.
The Horrid Vasuthant is the much bigger 25HD version which is certainly more difficult to wrangle, but it can force a reroll every round, and it has the ability to 3 times per day reverse an entire turn.

[magic9mushroom]

If you have Rebuke Undead, keeping a couple of Shadows or Allips around is always handy to deal with all those brawler monsters that get auto-beaten by them.

If you have access to a source of permanent mind control, such as Mother Cyst (for Necrotic Tumour) or Domination domain (for Monstrous Thrall), you can start making use of non-undead with useful SLAs (particularly anything non-combat with material or XP costs, like the various resurrections, but also stuff like a beholder's Disintegrate for tunnelling through dungeons)

[jintoya]

If you have Rebuke Undead, keeping a couple of Shadows or Allips around is always handy to deal with all those brawler monsters that get auto-beaten by them.

If you have access to a source of permanent mind control, such as Mother Cyst (for Necrotic Tumour) or Domination domain (for Monstrous Thrall), you can start making use of non-undead with useful SLAs (particularly anything non-combat with material or XP costs, like the various resurrections, but also stuff like a beholder's Disintegrate for tunnelling through dungeons)

Only problem with that is... There's no way you are going to mind control a beholder... "The beholder has planned for that" sums up the reason... But I get the basic idea... Wait, can a bullette leave a trail if it wants?
If it can then it doubles as a garbage disposal

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If I were a resident of D&D Land, I'd be making friends with several genies, and make the following deal: if you grant me two of your three daily wishes with an eye towards being both fair and accurate, I will make the third on your behalf. Of course, major emergencies trump this a bit, but any time that happens, additional wishes will be made on your behalf once the emergencies are dealt with.

[unseenmage]

Mirror Mephit for its Simulacrums.

Neth, the Living Plane for its flesh golems (can steal them via Rod of Construct Control).