Crew of the PC's ship

[TritonOne]

Do the NPCs that constitute the crew of the PC's ship stay at the same level that they joined the ship through the entirety of the adventure path? For example, if Rosie Cuswell survives the entire adventure path she is still a first level Fighter during the events of From Hell's Heart? Should the NPCs be awarded XP for the actions in which they participate?

Is it worthwhile to create NPC characters out of new/replacement crew members who join the PC's ship such as names, personalities, and biographies? Or is the generic "Shipmate" from Game Mastery Guide sufficient?

[Lamontius]

There's no real way to answer this, other than that it is up to you and the flow of your game

In my own GM'd game, a PC had some very interesting and spontaneous interactions with Syl Lonegan, a crew NPC who is barely even mentioned in the first chapter and has no real bearing on the story. As things progressed, I realized I'd need an actual stat block for her, so I made one that best fit what was going on in my players' game.

That being said, my PCs have become attached to a couple other crew members, so they will probably receive some leveling and/or stat block creation as well, though certainly not on any level with the PCs themselves.

For one, I have six PCs in my player group who are handling the combats quite well on their own and two, I want them to shine, not my NPCs.

[GM Wulfson]

You could treat them as cohorts and say that they are at least two levels below the PC's.

[LadyIrithyl]

I have it that regular crew earn 1 level for every 3 the PCs are going up. The officers on ship which act (in my campaign at least) as cohorts really since many have gone on adventures with them level up 1 for every 2 levels the PCs go up.

[DBH]

I treated them as cohorts, those who survived that is...

Sandara Quinn, Rosie Cusswell & Crimson Cogsward all ended up getting ships of their own, as part of the PC Captains fleet.

DBH

[KarlBob]

I'm planning to keep major NPCs (mostly people from the Wormwood) about two levels behind the PCs, at least for now. Later on, say around 10th level, I might have the NPCs fall further behind.

For nameless crew members, I'm planning to roughly follow the Fire as She Bears guidelines, about one level per dozen ship battles.