Have I made this villain a Mary Sue?(3.5/PF)

[Togath]

Players in my Lereth campaign, please stay out, as this contains spoilers.
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In one of the campaigns I'm running, one of the main behind the scenes villains was intended to be a chess master sort...but I'm beginning to worry he's(well, it) as become a Mary Sue.
The villain is a wood golem who obtained sentience as well as the psychic abilities of a very high level psion.
Since then he's started trying to make other sentient golems, but has only succeeded in ones with very low intelligence(3-7), which he sells as mercenaries to help fund his research(he currently largely employs them secretly to one of the largest empires in the game, as disease/poison immune guards).
He has started to become a villain, as he was going over his makers notes, and found signs that he might have been granted intelligence through using stolen souls and life energy, which has prompted him to start collecting wizards and psions for their souls, and well as sending his minions out to gather cadavers for making flesh and bone golems(another thing he's taken interest in).

One problem I'm having is that the PCs ended up encountering one of his minions, who had been sent to assassinate a thief who tried to rob him and in the process noticed the whole "digging up a graveyard with the help of an order of knights serving the emperor" thing, and has since fled the empire.
The minion has tracked the thief into a system of tunnels, but the PCs have encountered(and are working with it at the moment) the minion while hunting the thief for a local bounty on him.
I'm a bit worried that if the PCs try to find the villain at this point that he'll either seem like a Mary Sue(he's level 20, they're level 2) or in the very least he wont seem like a competent chess master any more.

[king.com]

I think your not fully understanding what a Mary Sue is. A Mary Sue tends to be a flawless character whose only faults are fairly trivial. Having a character who is simply much higher level does not make them a Mary Sue it makes them a higher level character.

[Flickerdart]

Someone with the powers of a level 20 Psion is much too smart to let every random minion know where and who he is. The PCs don't even need to know that the minion has a master. Maybe the golem only receives orders through homunculi, or through telepathic commands. Maybe the master teleports to meet him in a covert location and then vanishes after giving orders.

[Togath]

I think your not fully understanding what a Mary Sue is. A Mary Sue tends to be a flawless character whose only faults are fairly trivial. Having a character who is simply much higher level does not make them a Mary Sue it makes them a higher level character.

It was more being afraid my player might think i had made a Mary sue, rather then it just being a plain, but high level villain.
as I mention in my below comment, if I go with Flicker's idea of "it would be to smart to let it's minions know the way back" I shouldn't need to worry.


Someone with the powers of a level 20 Psion is much too smart to let every random minion know where and who he is. The PCs don't even need to know that the minion has a master. Maybe the golem only receives orders through homunculi, or through telepathic commands. Maybe the master teleports to meet him in a covert location and then vanishes after giving orders.

Those are very good ideas actually.
And part of my problem was the minion already said "Maker send me to dead the Tribbles-man for stealing from maker"...though I suppose that's more foreshadowing than anything else, and the minion doesn't know what magic or psionics are, and was teleported to a location where it could track the thief from, so it couldn't lead anyone back.

[Flickerdart]

Those are very good ideas actually.
And part of my problem was the minion already said "Maker send me to dead the Tribbles-man for stealing from maker"...though I suppose that's more foreshadowing than anything else, and the minion doesn't know what magic or psionics are, and was teleported to a location where it could track the thief from, so it couldn't lead anyone back.
Well, it's probably smart enough to remember being made, and is aware in the general sense that its creator is the one giving the orders. But it wouldn't be able to do much more than that, which would actually veil the original in a measure of mystique - here you have this guy powerful enough to create intelligent constructs, and nobody knows anything about him in any of the construct-making guilds or mage academies. Hell, they don't even know he's a golem himself!

[DontEatRawHagis]

My recommendation, if the Villain is so easy for the players to get to at lvl 2 then weaken the villain's level, but try to maintain the characteristics that define him.

Right now, I am falling into the same problem with one of my NPCs. Originally she was supposed to be a main villain, but now the players have caught on they will most likely meet up with her earlier than expected.

Now do I setup the NPC to kick their asses and tell them try again later? Or do I try balancing the NPC to be closer to their level and provide enough of a challenge that the players have fun?

I vote for setting up a good challenge, that way you can get rid of the character before they become stale. And maybe bring out some new NPCs along the way.

[Flickerdart]

Why would a high-level villianess hang around and concern herself with some low-level chumps? Have her drop a summon and then just leave. She has better things to do. Even if they beat it, they'll get a feel for her power, and then will prepare accordingly before they seek her out again. And if they can't beat the summon, hey, those things are on a timer anyway, all they need to do is survive.

[ArcturusV]

Yeah. Really the best thing you can do, from the sounds of it, is to have middle management. And it always means that if your Middle Management is smart enough or powerful enough that your players, stumbling across said middle management, might actually mistake them for the Big Bad Guy, think the plot is concluded, and move on.

Which is a dangerous place to be against a Chessmaster enemy. Particularly since he probably won't take notice of them until they do axe a middle management type.