and I have no clue as to if health or levels on npc's change.
For the non-story ones, based on ability to kill them with the same gear equipped, I'm pretty sure enemy stats are not altered....they are only 'dropped into' the game to give a little more challenge to the area, when you're of a higher level or something. And the game only does it to a certain extent....like the bandit areas I mentioned, once the golden gecko's start appearing, it never becomes something else, and the number of them doesn't increase - altho I think the number can vary a little, like 2 bigger g. geckos or 3-4 smaller g-geckos...probably some kind of threat level number and it randomly chooses a combo of them to reach that number.
It's like the game has two, maybe three spawn parameters, in such cases ... "low level" "after low level" and possibly "high level"
...but I'm guessing, I'm not 100% sure either.