I'm still learning the ropes on being a Game Master for table-top role playing games, specifically on making adventures not from pre-made modules that could be downloaded or bought. I'm doing pretty well, though I'm a bit on a "game master block" at this one point in a adventure I'm working on. I thought I'd explain the situation here and see what suggestions I might get.

So the situation in question is meant to be a fight with a demon lord. One thing I want to stick with this demon is that he is a master of lies--that is, an expert of deception, illusions, invisibility, and trickery. I thought his attacks would be subtle and sneaky one-hit major damage/instant-kill attacks then anything loud or flashy. I would like it this way as I want the characters to be confused and not sure where he is going to strike and how. One idea I had on this is that he would have 5 attacks (like summoning a horde of zombies or firing some beam). He would use 2 attacks in one turn, one would be invisible and the other would be an illusion. The illusion attack could be used to divert the characters into a possible hazard or distract them from the invisible attack that strikes them while they are off guard. I haven't put much thought into this part of the combat yet because of the dreaded "block" part I mentioned, and that is with a key NPC (Non Playable Character) in this fight.

The main story revolves around a NPC vampire who, like the characters in the story and other NPCs, have been tricked by this demon lord. The vampire NPC is not evil or good, but is meant to be neutral in the entire story. Before this fight with the demon lord, both the vampire NPC and the characters got critically wounded and need to recover themselves before this fight. Now healing the characters is not much of a problem, but I'm a bit stumped on how the characters could heal the vampire NPC.

The reason why I want the characters to revive the vampire NPC is because she is capable of looking past the demon lord's illusions and giving advice to the characters on where to attack and dodge. Of course I'm thinking I'll need something that can be used repeatedly as I'm sure the demon lord would focus his efforts on destroying the vampire NPC and then focus on the characters. I would like the boss fight to work this way because I want the characters to build trust with the vampire NPC during the fight, relying on her advice to fend off a foe they must defeat together.

I've asked this question around and the best answer I got is giving the vampire NPC some blood during the fight. I think this is the best idea, though I'm still open to any other ideas that might work. One thing I'm a bit hesitant on is the "use item at this point" situation where the characters are meant to have some item to use at this point in the game. I'm alright with this idea, *if* the characters can find this item and keep it before this fight--that is, not be so sure of what it does, but find it important enough to keep it around with them. An example of this is something like a cursed weapon that heals undead and drains the wielder's life. This could work for the vampire NPC, but the characters would toss that weapon aside and end up screwed during this fight.

Maybe the "use blood" option is the only thing, but I'm still open to other ideas. Sorry for the long rant as I wanted to explain this situation very thoroughly. Any tips on what to do with the demon lord is also appreciated as well. Oh, I'm not using any specific game system like "Dungeons & Dragons" system for this game as I'm using a home-made game system, but if anyone wants to suggest ideas from any of those, feel free to share. :)

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Ok, I don't think you're getting the whole 'tabletop' idea.

If you're using a Classic D&D Vampire, he'd drain levels and regenerate naturally. If it's a WoD Vampire, he'd take hitpoints in exchange of hitpoints; otherwise he'd just regen naturally.

But this talk of a 'Boss monster'? That's computer RPG talk. A P&P RPG should be about the players, never about the monsters.

If the Demon Lord is beatable, give him defences against magic, swords and curses. If he isn't, let him fight for a few rounds and then dimension door out.

Really, a lot of really good TT RPG's have less than half a page of notes and a lot of heart.

I find that in Pen and Paper RPG's fighting one powerful enemy is extremely boring, your characters will just whack at him, he'll whack at your heroes etc. Usually an epic cinematic action sequence works better.

The closest I've ever pulled off was when the main villain, while escaping down the side of an airship was suicidally tackled by one of the PC's, they ended up in an epic mid air grapple, dangling several thousand feet above the ground. This was ended by another PC stealing an airskiff and launching himself at the two grapplers by strapping himself to a rocket harpoon.

just make the boss a Rubix cube. solve to win.

"I rotate the top grid in a clockwise direction three clicks"

Throw in some nice variables and complications, like traps, or a giant pit in the middle of the room.

Also more enemies help make things interesting and exciting, never have just one enemy.

Voltano:
I'm still learning the ropes on being a Game Master for table-top role playing games, specifically on making adventures not from pre-made modules that could be downloaded or bought. I'm doing pretty well, though I'm a bit on a "game master block" at this one point in a adventure I'm working on. I thought I'd explain the situation here and see what suggestions I might get.

First off, let me say - "Welcome to being a Game Master!" In my mind, being a GM is the most fun and exciting experience that the gaming hobby has to offer.

So the situation in question is meant to be a fight with a demon lord. One thing I want to stick with this demon is that he is a master of lies--that is, an expert of deception, illusions, invisibility, and trickery. I thought his attacks would be subtle and sneaky one-hit major damage/instant-kill attacks then anything loud or flashy. I would like it this way as I want the characters to be confused and not sure where he is going to strike and how. One idea I had on this is that he would have 5 attacks (like summoning a horde of zombies or firing some beam). He would use 2 attacks in one turn, one would be invisible and the other would be an illusion. The illusion attack could be used to divert the characters into a possible hazard or distract them from the invisible attack that strikes them while they are off guard. I haven't put much thought into this part of the combat yet because of the dreaded "block" part I mentioned, and that is with a key NPC (Non Playable Character) in this fight.

I agree with the other commentators in this thread who said that you may be thinking in a "computer RPG" mindset. A pen-and-paper RPG needn't involve combat, necessarily. If the demon is a master of lies, the best way to illustrate this is not by giving him more attacks, it's by actually *having him lie to the players in a believable way that causes consequences.* For instance - what if the demon lies and convinces the party that one player is actually a traitor? Or leads them to accomplish his goals for him?

I would urge caution in using illusions and invisibility too heavily in a fight. "Invisible monsters" are exceptionally frustrating if the players have no defense against invisbility, but exceptionally easy if they do. Likewise, illusions tend to either be annoying/frustrating, or disbelieved and irrelevant.

The keys to a fun boss fight in a pen-and-paper RPG are:
1) A boss that is relatively easy to hurt, but capable of surviving substantial attrition (so everyone can participate in fighting him, but he sticks around a long time)
2) An environment which gets more dangerous with every passing combat round (like a collapsing dungeon, crashing sky-galleon, etc) so that there is tension to *kill the boss faster*
3) A boss with a wide variety of attacks, so that each round he can do something clever, different, and surprising
4) Using the boss in a way that *seems* very dangerous and scary, but actually isn't. Killing the low-HP wizard in round 1 is actually smart, but it's not fun for the players. Smashing the high-CON warrior down to half-HP in one round is good, because then everyone says "OMG if that had been me I'd be dead!" But next round, the boss then casts a stun, or something, etc.

The main story revolves around a NPC vampire who, like the characters in the story and other NPCs, have been tricked by this demon lord. The vampire NPC is not evil or good, but is meant to be neutral in the entire story. Before this fight with the demon lord, both the vampire NPC and the characters got critically wounded and need to recover themselves before this fight. Now healing the characters is not much of a problem, but I'm a bit stumped on how the characters could heal the vampire NPC.

The reason why I want the characters to revive the vampire NPC is because she is capable of looking past the demon lord's illusions and giving advice to the characters on where to attack and dodge. Of course I'm thinking I'll need something that can be used repeatedly as I'm sure the demon lord would focus his efforts on destroying the vampire NPC and then focus on the characters. I would like the boss fight to work this way because I want the characters to build trust with the vampire NPC during the fight, relying on her advice to fend off a foe they must defeat together.

So, here is what is likely to happen:
1) An over-zealous player will kill your vampire lord, or try to. You will manage to talk them out of doing so because he's an important NPC.
2) During the boss fight, the vampire will get killed. It won't occur to the players to heal him. They'll then complain they can't get through the illusions.

If things DO work out the way you've said, then effectively the demon's illusions are rendered moot, so long as the healer heals the vampire. What you've done is (a) added and taken away illusions for (b) a net cost of one healer's time.

I would recommend instead that the vampire lord be the one who cautions the players about the dangers they will face from the demon. He could give them clues about the demon's likely tactics that they can then prepare for before the battle. But I'd recommend that the vampire get "stunned" "incapacitated" or otherwise put out of the fight almost right away, so it can be your heroes defeating the demon.

I've asked this question around and the best answer I got is giving the vampire NPC some blood during the fight. I think this is the best idea, though I'm still open to any other ideas that might work. One thing I'm a bit hesitant on is the "use item at this point" situation where the characters are meant to have some item to use at this point in the game. I'm alright with this idea, *if* the characters can find this item and keep it before this fight--that is, not be so sure of what it does, but find it important enough to keep it around with them. An example of this is something like a cursed weapon that heals undead and drains the wielder's life. This could work for the vampire NPC, but the characters would toss that weapon aside and end up screwed during this fight.

Maybe the "use blood" option is the only thing, but I'm still open to other ideas. Sorry for the long rant as I wanted to explain this situation very thoroughly. Any tips on what to do with the demon lord is also appreciated as well. Oh, I'm not using any specific game system like "Dungeons & Dragons" system for this game as I'm using a home-made game system, but if anyone wants to suggest ideas from any of those, feel free to share. :)

Using blood seems like a fine idea. It fits with how people understand vampires, and is cinematic. Using an item is also good. In D&D 1e/2e, undead could be healed by a reversed cure spell -i.e. cause light wounds counted as a heal. So that could work too.

I don't understand what Tabletop, P&P, D&D RPG's are, but I'll try to give a good answer.

How about having the players trick the Demon Lord into doing something which will lead to the NPC vampire sucking some of the Demon Lord's blood? Like using his own lie against him.

Well good luck with you RPG

Yeah I'll admit that most of my gaming experience comes more from a computer RPG standpoint instead of a table-top RPG fashion, and I respect the criticism. Though I made a decision long before this fight to use the examples of a "boss fight" from video games like "God of War" or "Ookami" instead of the standard boss fights found in "pen and paper" computer RPGs like the first two "Fallout" games.

I'll admit that I'm limiting a lot of the choices available in a tabletop RPG this way, but it might be fun to experiment and see how it goes really. There will be ways to defeat this boss as I'm not trying to make him uber powerful, though I do have a concern with him using illusions or the fact that the characters relying on the vampire NPC would seem to be taking too much attention of the story from them.

@The_root_of_all_evil: Thank you for clearing this up for me on how a vampire works in Dungeons & Dragons and (acronym check?) WoD. As I said in my first post, that I'm not really using the mechanics of a familiar game system but one I designed. I do appreciate the ideas and I'm sorry for the confusion on the "boss".

@PedroSteckecilo: I thought of a similar situation while writing my first post like this. What if the characters had to run away from the demon lord and avoid his attacks while finding some means of destroying/defeating him. Again, too vague but I get what your saying.

@Archon: A lot of the pit-falls you mentioned have been on my mind as well. Of course this would blow the whole idea of this boss fight out of the water if one character kills off the vampire NPC and I don't want to make it that it turns into a fight with a "NPC vs. another NPC" thing. I've taken into consideration about whether she should be just incapacitated during the fight, though I'm still hesitant to go with that attempt as I fear it would hinder the "building the trust" aspect I want.

One a side note: It sounds like from what is described here on the demon lord that he should (In my opinion) act like the tricky "G-Man" from the Half-Life series. I like that idea, and again, my apologies to any table-top role player here who were confusing my talk on boss with a "video game boss."