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My group preferred the Fire as She Bears (FaSB)-rules over the SS-ones. SS made sgip-to-ship combat all about the boarding. The huge amount of HP ships have, coupled with the relative low damage output of siege weapons means that ships never sunk or were damaged beyond recovery and capture. In FaSB, that's a real danger, especially when facing larger warships.

I made an excel-sheet for building FaSB-ships on the fly. Feel free to use it (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7032675/FaSB%20ships.xlsx).

Just handwave it away. The encounter introduces an interesting NPC, who might become important later. There's not great meta-plot here.

However, if you really want an explanation, consider this: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/t/track-ship.

A routine casting by the Merchant Consortiums diviner will quickly reveal that the Mans Promise have deviated from course, and is likely captured by pirates. That'll explain how it's common knowledge that the ships is stolen.

The link seems to have expired. Here goes again:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7032675/FaSB%20ships.xlsx

Sorry to say this, but the game simply isn't good enough for the investment, both in time and money.
My group has played through most of the RotR, and we're frankly getting bored. It's to easy, to repetitive, and there's other co-op games out there which we prefer.
We're nowhere near challenged, and has never even been close to loosing a scenario. Even if we were, we could just wait it all out and let the deck run dry, but that has never been necessary to even consider.
Co-op games live and die by the challenge they present, and RotR is simply to easy. Since that's what we have to judge the whole Pathfinder franchise on, we're not going to throw money after a new set.

STR also doesn't give anything but damage.
Dex gives AC, initiative and saves, Con gives hp and saves, Wis gives higher saves, Int gives skillpoints. Cha doesn't give anything.

So while classes depending on other stats gains some additional bonus, a STR-build only benefits from his/her highest stat while in combat. If you want a high STR, especially with a 15-point build, you'll have dumped some other stats and now suffer for that (except CHA, unless you do that pesky thing called roleplaying). If you want anything else, you'll dump STR and don't care.

Yes, it's easy to build an effective two-handed STR-based fighter... who'll then be easily outsmarted/outmanouvered by anything based on not charging directly into melee.

Aldori Dueling sword.
If you have Exotic Wpn. Profiency, you can use Weapon Finesse on it even though it's not light. It's slashing, so you could use Slashing grace. And it could be a Black Blade.

That might be to feat-expensive for you, but it is an option...

While I see the reasoning behind that line, I wonder if it is in any way supported by any rules, or if it's just the common interpretation.

I might be missing something obvious, but I cannot find any reference to what I am allowed to do while brewing my alchemist mutagen.

I get that it takes an hour to brew, and that I can technically make a new one whenever I have consumed the old, but that brewing a replacement mutagen takes 1 hour. However, what exactly does 'brew a mutagen' mean? -Is it mixing some reagents and allowing the 'potion' to rest, meaning I can do other stuff meanwhile (such as preparing extracts/spells, or being the party look-out while everyoe else sleeps)?
-Does it require constant attendence, because magic? Meaning I can't do anything else?
-Does it require occasional attendence, such as stirring it once in a while, or adding new ingredients? Meaning I could be party look-out, or cook the dinner/raise a tent/whatever, but not preparing spells or other stuff requiring full concentration?
-Does it require an alchemist lab, even a portable one?
-Does it require any alchemical stuff, such as boiling over my bonfire (meaning I can't prepare if without lighting a fire), or any of the options outline for alchemical recipes?
-Does it even require ingredients? Can I brew it if I have lost my ingredient pouch?

Thanks for answering.

Since AC quite often represent physical armour, I assume crits being all about finding defects (by luck if we're talking about a 20/x3 greataxe, by skill if we're talking 15-20/x2 rapier) in the armour.
"Your blade finds the joint between his shoulderguard and breastplate, and sinks deep into his unprotected body".
That's the difference between a crit-based weapon/build and one just scoring the occasinal 20. A crit-based rapier-build is using a weapon designed to find and exploit the joints and necessary weaknesses, and has trained himself to do so. A natural 20 just happens to find such a joint by sheer luck, as when an archer just happens to hit Harold Godwinsons eye in the battle of Hastings, 1066.

Sneaks are about aiming for vulnerable spots by design. In these cases, these vulnerabilities are not design flaws in the armour, but physical soft spots, such as eyes, kidney punches, knees ect.

When we played Skulls & Schackles, the PC's often went to taverns and alehouses when in ports. If I had an encounter planned for that evening, I simply asked them to assign themself a modifier between -0 to -5, depending on how heavily they had been drinking. -0 of course meant that they had hardly drunk at all, and the others PCs and NPCs would react accordingly in roleplaying situations afterwards.
My players happily assigned themself appropiate modifiers, but I might have been blessed with fine roleplayers who thought more in character than about mechanical modifiers.

Some of the fights can be brutal and close to deadly, especially in the Wormwood Mutiny. Once my players gained control of their own ship, they had a NPC Besmara cleric aboard. I let that NPC level along with the players, and allowed them to purchase spellcasting from him (Sandara died off quickly in my campaign). The gave them access to raise, restoration and similar much needed spells, but since they had to pay for the casting, and since the NPC was allways at their level, and thus often charged more than the minimum needed for the spell, this easy acces came at a price.

Instead of going for a rule to impact flavour, why not just impact flavour? I've decided that my Lini is a Lamasthu worshipper, stocked my deck with Blessings of Lamasthu, and claims that all the animals in my deck are deformed versions of their base animals. It has absolutely no rules impact, but is great fun. You don't need the rules to tell you how to play the game!

I've had some success in throwing in a couple of level-appropiate sea monsters. These baddies can threathen the ship by attacking it from below, thus requiring someone (most likely the captain and his trusty officers, aka the PC's) to dive in. Underwater combat is a nice change of pace from the usual boarding actions.

Apart from that, I like to add some roleplaying encounters, dealing with the day-to-day management of shipboard affairs. It all depends on how fleshed out your crew are, but it'll give the players a chance to show how they run their ship. Crewmen caught stealing from others, some fighting due to a rigged game of cards, someone not technically violating the rules, but still being an ass to his comrades, and such. My players happily recruited goblins, gargoyles and such, allowing for much mayhem, but your players might be not-so-evil, and thus requiring other ideas.

As I read it, in the players fleet, it's only thePC's who're considered significant characters. Later on, they'll be able to hire specific NPC's who grant boons as well, but these are specificly mentioned as such.

In your example, Pierce Jerrell is just a commodore, and does not grant the +2 attack/damage/morale. Should the players replace him with one of their own, the squadron would be be under command of a signicicant character.
In short, just because a man has a name does not make him a significant named NPC.

My players certainly know where Harrigan lives, but so far the political consequences prevent them from launching a preemptive strike. Remember, nobody knows he's a Chelish agent. For all the Council knows, he's just gotten lucky lately. If the PC's suddenly decide to launch a majorninvasion against a Free Captain and member of the Brotherhood, Kerdak Bonefist would have to take action. Most of the neutral pirate lords would side with Kerdak, if nothing else then because such renegade actions are a threath to all... if they go for Harrigan today, what's to prevent them from going for Hardluck Masey tomorrow?
Even their allies, notably Tessa, would likely abandon them. She doesn't know Harrigan is involved with anything, and to her knowledge, his rivalry with the PC's is a sideshow to the real threath.
When Harrigan moves and thus break the Code, he's a legal target. But not before.

In these cases, I tend to search for historical references. I tend to use Spain as a reference for Chelia, as a large empire somewhat dependent on their colonies.

According to Wikipedia, in the 19th century the Spanish Navy consisted of 150 ships, including 47 ships of the line. This is in a period where Spain is rapidly in decline, and has lost several major engagements.

So the Battle of Abendego is a major blow, but does not leave Chelia defenceless. They'll most likely start a rebuilding program (and in a setting with magic available, building is far faster than in the real world), and could draft some easily convertible merchantmen into the fleet.

Any roleplaying is a contract between the players and the GM. It goes like this: "I'll give you a good time, if you'll let me."
Inform the players straight away, before play starts, that this is not an AP where every challenge will be level appropiate. There will be fights they cannot win, and should thus choose not to take. There will be high level NPC's they should not challenge.
And then let him play as he wants. First step out of line; punishment! Second step; have Plugg display superiority, beat him unconsious, and the punish him some more.
Third step; Kill him off. No matter how hard pressed Harrigan is for crew, he'll not accept obvious troublemakers.

I told my players they could do whatever they wanted, but that the world would react to their actions.

+1 to Fire as She Bears. There's some work to do, but it's pretty easy to convert FaSB's cannons into S&S' ballistas.

With FaSB the naval combat offers other options than simply boarding, and there's some actual manouvering and broadside-firing going on. Ships will be battered and damaged after a fight, which will also help prevent the easily abused possibility of capturing and reselling every ship you meet.

Later on the PC's will seek information in a sacred Callistra brothel, they'll encounter a Free Captain who'll shamelessly hit on anything that moves, and one of the captains of the Inner Council will promise intimate rewards if necessary.

Cabin boy is an official ship position: Cabin boy on Wikipedia

Our Mans Promise was converted into 5 length, 1 height, 1 wide. Then we added 1 castle at front and rear. That's a total of 7 hull locations. This means they're no match for dedicated warships, like the Dominator, but with a broadside of 10 ballistas (they've invested quite heavily in their ship) they are able to outfight most merchants and light escorts.

Not a conversion as such, but I'm using the following spreadsheet to quickly create FaSB-ships on the fly whenever needed:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5jwd6e9yjgh01ev/FaSB%20ships.xlsx

Just enter numbers into the designated cells, and everything is calculated from there.

There's a few NPC's who'll be important later on. Befriending, killing or otherwise seriously interacting with these will require some rewriting of the later parts:

It'll be to early for them to entrench themself permanently. If they set up a base, it should be kept minor and relatively unimportant. Apart from that, have fun!

You still have to confirm a flash of insight.
However, even against a high AC-target, flash of insight is very strong. It means most cyclopes will land 1 hit (they could get killed before they get to act at all), and they deal out a decent amount of damage at 3d6+7.

I played the cyclopes as intelligent opponents. If the PC's withdrew from the main city, they'll get shadowed by the gargoyle scouts, while the cyclopes will prepare a new ambush, this time with all their ressources pooled into it. Battle means noise, and noise means the other cyclopes will come to investigate.

You'll want skill points! Lots and lots of skill points. This is really an AP where the social skills gets to shine, as well as off course the ever popular profession: sailor. Add to that some swimming, some athletics, the occasional climbing in riggings, and you'll quickly run out of skill points. This is not an AP for int-dumping.

Lawfull could also mean that the PC allways follows the captains orders, and is opposed to general cheating. No rigged games of dice, potentially no underhand tactics to lure in passing merchantmen, no lying to get out of trouble.
In my game, the captain was LE. For her, it meant she allways kept her word, even when breaking it would obviously be much more beneficial to her, and that she allways allowed Sargavan ships to sail by, as they had paid their protection money. It was very unpopular with the rest of the officers, and made for great fun.

The Master of the Gales could work some pretty awesome magic, and bring back (at least one of) the PC's from death. They'll be in his debt, and you might have to tweak some events, perhaps complicate things a bit. He is a powerfull druid, and is certainly capable of Reincarnate. Use a bit of GM-fiat to ensure the player reincarnate into something they'll enjoy playing. Or perhaps the Master has access to previously unknown spells (read: you as GM just damn well say that he can bring them back, without bothering with what spells he use).

If you don't like Reincarnate, Tessa or the Master could have powerfull clerics amongst their allies, who could cast Resurrection. Supposedly they have managed to bring back a bit of the PC's body, perhaps at great expense and danger, which will of course have to be repaid.

The rules say not to bother with crew. It's assumed that crew killed are replaced by 'volunteers' from the captured ship.

Personally, I kill off NPC-crew based on how well the PC's did in their main fight. If they slaughtered the enemy captain and officers in 2-3 rounds, they'll lose d4 crewmembers. Longer fights, and I roll d6, d8, etc. If they withdraw, I'll go way higher (they left more then 30 men onboard the Dominator in a later fight).

On the Mans Promise, it's assumed that no named NPC's are killed. In this case, it's important because they have interacted with these NPC's, and their attitude is important. Later on, I would recommend you kill of nameless crewmen as you deem necessary, but save the named ones, those they know and care about, for dramatic moments.

If they have to many allies among the crew, and you think the end-fight will be to easy, the boarding og Mans Promise is a good time to sort it out. Kill off 2 of their allies, and have them replaced by Harrigan-loyal captured crewmen.

We're currently running Island of Empty Eyes (book 4), and so far I'm averaging 1 kill pr. session. We're using hero points, and they've paid for a couple of raise deads, so only 1 PC has actually been replaced. But the island so far has claimed 6 deaths, which is worse than book 1 (which 'only' claimed 5). :)

Yes, it's a brutal campaign. I really recommend hero points to give a fighting chance. :)

When I start a new campaign, I allways have a talk of expectations with my players beforehand. Part of that talk is hero death. My players like a tactical challenge, and treats combat, character optimization and tactical use of the battlefield as a cherished part of the game. For them, pulling the punches would ruin the fun. That being said, we are also aware that we're playing a larger story, so it's generally accepted that TPKs are a baaad thing, and that I as GM will try to keep at least one man alive (trough capture or something similar).

So, have you talked to your players about it? You might discover they don't mind, and that the player in question walked up to the deamon, because combat had lost its flavour. Pathfinder is a social game, where the goal is for everyone to have fun and maintain a long investment of time. Common goals is important, and since mindreading is hard, asking questions is a good way to ensure that everyone is playing the same game.

If you're only selling plunder for 500 gp pr point, you're missing out!! Ok, if you've taken debt (to pay for squibbing?), but that should end at some point. But a 30% mark down for not being famous enough... and 20-30% for shopping magic items in non-major ports?
How about Bloodcove? Senghor? The Adventure Path specificly mentions non-Schackles ports you should sail to in roder to sell loot without getting in trouble with other pirates. There's an NPC who's supposed to tell you that, if you don't have knowledge: local yourself. And these are major trading centers, where 1 plunder point pr. rule sells for 1000 gp, and where magic items are readily for sale (or rather, should be, but with the reading your GM is demonstrating, that won't help).
Also, if you capture ships, these sell for 5 plunder points, that's 5000 gp apiece.

As far as I know, my group (where I am GM) as well above WBL, and has been for a while. I don't exactly remember if it started at book 2 or later, but there's some awesome and exepensive loot in book 3, so it might be that you'll catch up later.

Counting the ship towards WBL is rubbish. This ship is an essential plot device, not value.

Swim!! You'll need swim!! Skulls and Schackles is set on a pirate ship, but you will go overboard at some point.

It all depends on setting, but my take would be that magic isn't that common. Sure, it exists, and everyone knows that mages can do powerfull stuff. Clerics can heal, and wizards can alter reality to their hearts delight. But that's all a 1st level fighter, or any commoner, would know.

So a 1st level fighter would know that a cleric could proparbly heal his wounds, raise the dead, cure his diseases and remove that nasty curse he's suffering from. He would proparbly also assume that healing a minor cut is pretty easy magic, and the rest is harder. But he wouldn't know that Restoration has a material cost, or that the local cleric is able to heal ability damage but not ability drain ("But you just healed me yesterday, when I couldn't move my leg. Why can't you heal me today, when I can't move my leg?")

I'd assume that it takes either knowledge arcane, spellcraft, or travelling with a wizard, to know about special schools, and perhaps even to know that what one wizard can do, another perhaps can't. ("Come on, last year I encountered one of your kind, and he could summon monsters out of thin air. So go ahead and summon a horse, I know you can do it! It's not like I'm asking for demons.").

Off course, if your 1st level fighter previously served in the city watch, where part of his duty was to subdue drunken mage apprentices, he could recognize a few spells. But in general, I'd assume it takes direct experience with a spell, and more than one encounter even (unless the fighter has high WIS), to recognize it.

That's my take, but it's heavily dependant on setting and gaming group, so there's really no right answer here.

It all depends on what opponents you encounter, and how your GM plays them.
Your foes could decide to ignore your summons, and go for your and/or your partymembers instead. There's nothing that forces them to go for the nearest target, and since it's kind of pointless to chip away at the HP of a summon, a GM with a GM vs. PC's mindset could very well decide to ignore whatever you summon, and just suck up whatever damage they're able to deal.
So, in short, if your GM ignores summons, it won't work. If your GM isn't playing the game as GM vs. PC's, it should work well against most foes.

I don't think it'll be any good (mechanicly), but how about the good old fashion phalanx? A group of fighters, possibly Phalanx Soldiers or Polearm masters. Any foe closing to meele range will face a couple of AoO when moving past their spears. Give them Shield Wall and Paired Opportunists as well.

In general, look through the list of teamwork feats (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/teamwork-feats). That could serve as inspiration for some well coordinated groups.

So, the situation is this; I am going to build an encounter, in which the players will face a Cyclops Druid. But here's the catch: The players will most likely never engage the druid in melee, and not even shoot directly at her. They'll only face her spellcasting, and therefore it doesn't matter at all what race she is.

Can I, in this situation, ignore her race for CR-purposes, and just treat her as any HD 0-creature when calculating CR and XP? It's important for the storyline that she's a cyclops, so the easy solution, to have her be an elf or whatever, doesn't apply here.

I don't know if you're feat-starved, but a level of Gunslinger would give you proficiency with all firearms, including siege firearms. That would save you from taking exotic weapon proficiency: [any siege weapon].

I din't know if the Steam Giant uses cannons, but if it does, these are considered firearms, so you could add your dexterity to damage if going for pure gunslinger.

Oh, and Lessah; Decanters of Endless Waters won't work as jets. One of the players in my group, a professional engineer, did the calculations (they were planning to use the method to propel their pirate ship in Skulls and Schackles). The pressure simply isn't high enough to push anything at all.

Just tried the - "you-and-you-alone-don't-get-any-rest" in a paizo campaign.

My magus started the day by wanting more rest.
He didn't get arcane points, he didn't get to memorise spell. He was fatigued. He died later that day...

This was a "thing" for the better part of a senario. Each night someone choosen randomly had bad dreams - and sucked the next day unless the made a fort save DC alot.
1 day was okay - haha - I still have a few spells - and 5 pearls of power I, just a bad day. Next day day only 1 level spells. - and then i died...

Point being - it's okay to nerf a player - but don't over do it.

This event happens somewhere in the Skulls & Schackles Adventure Path.

I was Bigtunas GM, and randomized who had the dreams.
I, as a GNM, like it when spellcasters are penalized. This game, especially at higher levels, is far to much about spellcasters. The poor melee-types rarely get to shine, while their spellcasting friends vaporize the opposition every chance they get. This is especially true if the setting encourages 1-encounter-a-day situations, such as Skulls & Schakles do (in which the players are pirates; they rarely encounter more than 1 hostile ship a day).
It made for a nice change of pace to have the spellcasters suddenly have to prioritize their ressources during encounters, as they never knew if they could get a decent nights rest.
In this case it was obviously randomized who was hit, they had a Fort save to negate the consequences, and they had a way to end the dreams.

Whatever you decide to do, remember that your players are in this to have fun. If they don't know the plot, it would suck to play a cleric and suddenly be without access to divine spells. Even the loss of domain spells, channel, or other granted powers, would be pretty sad.

If you want to capture of a god to have a game-technical impact, make sure that you give your players fair warning.

This is beside the original question, but I'll repeat Story Archers advice against building a freaking huge ship... if nothing else, then because it makes actual piracy next to impossible. There's a fine link between size and speed, and freaking huge ships are, at least if they're windpowered, slower than not so freaking huge ships.

Merchants and everything else not specificly looking for a fight will likely outrun them.

I just make appraise checks up as appropiate. For instance: the description says that amongst the tools scatterede around an abandoned smithy are some masterwork tools (or weapons). I have my players roll appraise versus som DC I make up (usually 10 or 15), and only if they succeed do I tell them it's masterwork. Unless they're extremely poor, they're not likely to loot a standard non-magical dagger, so if they fail the check, and thus fail to realize its worth, they'll just leave the masterwork weapon behind.

For non-standard treasure I do the same; make up a DC and have the PCs roll appraise. Even if they know these old gold are worth something to collectors, they'll not realize the full worth with a failed appraise check. And thus, they could sell the 2500 gp collectors ietms for 2000 gp (I assume any merchant is attempting to cheat the poor, clueless adventurer who obviously doesn't know what the stuff is worth).

Piles of gold are not appraised. They just count it, and that's it.

I usually describe roleplaying to neewcomers by comparing it to theatre:

In theatre/movies, the actors has all the lines, behaviour and decision, and try to create a personality from that point.
In roleplaying, you have (or create) a personality, and make up all the lines, decisions and behavior from that point.

All the rules and such are secondary to the roleplaying, and I would go very easy on the rules with newcomers.

I run raiding events whenever the players ask for it. If the say "we go hunting", I usually let them run into a generic merchant after 2-3 days. Off course, I try to vary these encounters, so some merchants will be escorted, some will be Aspis Consortium (which they don't raid, since they rely heavily on Bloodcove as sellingpoint), some will be Free Captains or unrecognised pirates, etc. In short, I give them something to interact with after 2-3 days at open sea.

If the players are seeking plot, I usually don't bother with sandbox. If they're seeking sandbox, I don't bother with plot.

Just to clarify; the weird words of a Sound Striker is 7 attacks, each of d8+4. Each roll to hit vs. touch AC, each has fort. save for half.

Assuming every attack hits and half of them are saved against, that's 4d8+16, and 4d8+16 halfed. About 6d8 + 24. Not to bad for a bardic music use... of course that's all dependent on dice rolls.

I'm not saying Sound Striker is the optimal build, just clarifying that Weird Words is 7 x d8+4, not a single d8+4.

I'd suggest the Sound Striker.

At 7th level, you can make 7 Weird Words, each at d8+4 as a standard action, and then start (or restart) your inspire courage as a move action. You'll burn through your bardic musics, but you'll be a decent damage-dealer and keep up the buffs. It's not front-line, though, but with those stats, you'll never be a good front-line combatant anyway.

The halfling doesn't change size. The eidolon, however, can be a different size (in this case, medium), in which case the "combined" summoner+eidolon would be medium.

Now granted, if EVERYONE in the party geared up for a wilderness campaign full of hack and slash and all I had planned was urban diplomacy, I'd probably go back to the drawing board a little. But for the most part, so long as I'm running the general kind of game my players want, why manufacture the entire world SOLELY around them?

This is also an important point; pre-game expectations and discussions of these. If you're going to run an urban investigation, and your players all show up with wilderness rangers, druids and barbarians, you obviously either didn't discuss this before hand, or completely failed your conversation. :)

I allways discuss the adventure I'm going to run with my players before we start. I make sure that we're all on the same page regarding expectations. This goes both in regards to roleplaying (does a paladin really belong in this adventure?), group composition (is a CE rogue and a CG ranger a good mix?) and group skillset (are we low on healing? Can we buy wands instead of having an ingroup solution?).

The extreme of 'building encounters to suit the PCs' means that everyone might as well play lvl 1 commoners.
If every monster can hit the highest AC, then why bother maxing AC? You'll get hit on 11+ anyway.
If any monster can survive max. damage from the highest damage-dealer, why bother maxing damage? Every monster will survive your intial attacks anyway?

Pathfinder is not only about building a single PC, but also about building a party. A good adventuring party will be able to overcome any challenges encounter, one way or another. If you can't pick locks, then you better be prepared to bash down doors... and thus give any foes behind said doors long time to prepare. If you low on magic, then find a way to overcome arcane challenges. If you're low on knowledge skills, be prepared to miss clues, and perhaps even treasures, along the way. Or buy a book on ancient Ghol-Tan Empires, if you suspect you'll encounter Ghol-Tan ruins in your next adventure.

In short; I don't build encounters to my PC's. I build encounters to a wellbalanced party. That means the heavily combat-based party will walk right through some encounters, and be stuck at others.

I'm wondering how other DM's handled ** spoiler omitted **

I ruled that the well in itself has some magical proporties (after all, it has kept her imprisoned for centuries) that allowed her to use her wishes once pr. person, but prevented her from using them on her own.

As she is the one actually casting the spell, I said that she would want all the wishes spoken out loud up front before she started fullfilling them. That way, she wouldn't fullfill any wishes, unless one of them was for her freedom.

However, the PC's has so far used two of their wishes on resurrections. This island is deadly!!! They're keeping their last wish in reserve untill they have cleaned the island, as they have had 5 deaths so far (two survived through hero points, one raised dead and then the two resurrection wishes).

I have designated a player as XP-tracker. Since I dish out XP to all characters, even if a player misses an evening of play, they'll all have the same amount of xp.
So the designated XP-tracker is the only one bothering with keeping track of XP, and informs everyone else when it's time to level.

I also have a party-quartermaster, who's responsible for tracking loot and the partys shared ressources. Another guy is responsible for their followers, henchmen and crew (since we're running a Skulls and Schackles-campaign). A fourth guy keeps track of their ship, their stores of ammonition and ship improvements.

Having divided responsibilities works really well. Since each guy is only focusing on one task, all information is allways up to date.