I'm going to teach my mercs to stay in a circle around me and be meat shields if this doesnt happen And i somehow knew you would be the first to respond and there would be few others.
I think some perks for them would be cool, but maybe not as powerful as player perks. Not really sure about what they could be. But in general, more control and information on our mercs/slaves would be nice. I'm really thinking character sheets for every NPC under your control. Each could show up as a tab on the side of your character sheet. Not as detailed as ours, but at least a way to monitor them. Including their location would also help slavers and the like keep track of where their NPCs are and how many they have.