Greek salads are wonderful with... oh, wait.To me, the best slaad encounters fill like a frenzy of energy.
Slaads, in my games, have always been chaotic in everything they do. They change their focus constantly, they don't plan, and they generally only really care about pleasure, food and reproduction. They generally don't try to be destructive - their instincts are more like those of an animal and the destruction they cause is more of a side effect than a goal. PCs have often dealt with them by providing them a better playground rather than by killing them. Everything beyond food, pleasure and reproduction holds their attention for a moment or two at most - until you get to the highest ranks of the salad which tend to have a more destructive side. They revel in breaking down any type of order they encounter, and will go out of their way to wreck devastation. However, every slaad can be redirected to something else it cares about... even an evil slaad will stop battle if given an opportunity for a truly wonderful feast or an opportunity to reproduce.
In combat, they never stand still. They switch targets constantly and don't coordinate their attacks. Because they lack coordination, I get away with using more than I would if they were efficient in their strategy.
Red and blue tend to be more animalistic in my game... they can speak, but rarely do. Other slaads tend to speak more, but they tend to have two modes: silent or babbling fast and mostly incoherently.
To differentiate them from demons, I try to think about making them act like forces of nature. They roll over a group of PCs in a wave. I keep the combat moving fast and add elements to the combat that give the PCs extra considerations to worry about during the fight to add to the feel of a frenzy of activity. For example, I might have the PCs battle the slaads in a forest or building that is on fire so that the PCs need to deal with e spreading fire and the slaads... or I might put them in the astral plane and have the slaad attacking the PCs in the middle of a meteor storm... or I might roll the slaads into the combat round by round by round with each round adding more (giving the feeling that the PCs are soon to be overrun by the slaad).
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