D&D 5E Help Me Grok Slaad

So I've never really understood the slaad. MM descriptions of them seem dominated by their weird, overly complex body-horrorish reproduction. Which is cool and all, but I'm wondering how to use them in an adventure, and what they act like in character. What motivates them? What do they act like (insane and bizarre, or more like a force of nature/raw chaos?).

I think it's interesting that "standard" slaad are chaotic neutral, while the more powerful gray slaad and death slaad are chaotic evil.

I also vaguely remember a section from a 4e splatbook describing a "social" encounter with a slaad, and that the slaad would basically be insane and hard to follow in its logic, saying things like "the tongue behind your tongue lies" and generally being not responsive to persuasion, but pretty responsive to intimidation. I'm wondering if there's more examples of this, and basically how to roleplay a slaad generally.

No-one groks Slaad they are ungrokable

Their behaviour is totally chaotic. Don't even try to understand it.

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).

Pickles JG said:

No-one groks Slaad they are ungrokable

Click to expand...

Ravenheart87 said:

Their behaviour is totally chaotic. Don't even try to understand it.

Click to expand...

I get what you're saying, but this is hardly helpful advice. I'm asking for advice as a DM presenting slaads to players. How am I suppose to present that?

DM: You see a toad thing hunched over a few yards away.
Player1: What's it doing?
DM: Something completely incomprehensible.
Player1: Okay... is it aggressive?
DM: You don't know. It's pure chaos. It's like totally chaotic man.
Player2: I walk up to it say, "Hello, can I help you?"
DM: The slaad responds.
Player1: ... with what? What does it do?
DM: Something completely incomprehensible. Roll for initiative.
<Slaad fight>
DM: Okay, the slaad is dead. But you're all infected and failed your Constitution saving throws. Your'e all slaad now!
Player2: Okay, so we're slaad toad-things. What does that mean? What do we do? What's going through our heads?
DM: Completely incomprehensible things.
Player1: You are the crappiest DM ever.

It does not exactly a thrilling encounter make.

I think the key to understanding slaad is that they act 99% chaotic, but there is still a method to their madness. They were spawned from an artifact of order amidst limbo, and their biology and hierarchy are somewhat orderly; I think they embody chaos with purpose, whereas before the spawning stone limbo had no purpose--it was just chaos-as-raw potential.

Now Limbo is chaos that wants something: maybe to expand its domain at the expense of neighboring outer planes, maybe to consume the prime material? Maybe it's smaller scale, and the slaad are just the archenemies of the modrons with no other purpose.

But in course of play, I agree with jgsugden: the lower slaad should fight savagely, but with no tactice--constantly switching targets and disengaging one round only to charge in the next.

I think it would be cool if when a lot of slaad get together, nature starts to ben and twist back into a limbo-like state, and when they leave it stabilizes in a slightly mutated form. Or when a weapon hits them, it twists and bends out of shape.

Cold dish typically consisting of raw vegetables mixed with eggs, cheese, or other various accoutrements, usually finished with a sauce or dressing. Pretty straight forward.

I'm a fan of mesclun, feta, dried cranberries, walnuts, and homemade honey balsamic vinaigrette. Use with care though. This should be reserved for epic tier adventurers only and even then don't expect them to pass their save if they aren't Wisdom proficient.

Kinneus said:

DM: The slaad responds.
Player1: ... with what?

Click to expand...

Turquoise bicycle shoe fins actualize radishes greenly!

Slaad are chaos incarnate. It doesn't mean the things they do are incomprehensible. It just means the things you decide for it to do should be random and make little sense.

I'd use a die roll.

1-4 Attacks nearest PC
5-6 Charges farthest PC
7 Runs away
8 Insults nearest PC'S mother. It knows her name.
9 Acts rationally, but spends turn relieving itself. Any squares it occupies or moves through becomes difficult terrain.
10 Grapples nearest PC, then tosses them up in the air, like a baby

That's just off the top of my head.

Kinneus said:

I get what you're saying, but this is hardly helpful advice. I'm asking for advice as a DM presenting slaads to players. How am I suppose to present that?

Click to expand...

Well, definitely not like the crappy example. Show them it's chaotic, don't tell. Just improvise and come up with some action. At first the slaad's busting some sweet dance move like Michael Jackson, after the PC attacks he screams furiously like a little girl and claws at the attacker furiously, after killing the PC he's teabagging over the corpse.