In an effort to make individual crew members stand out (both for myself as the GM, and for the PC's), as well as make the eventual mutiny more exciting, I decided to randomly assign each of the Wormwood's un-statted crew members class levels, instead of being given their 2 levels in Warrior). The result is as follows (Fighter and Swashbuckler had the highest chance, then Barbarian and Rogue, then Monk, Ranger, Brawler, and Slayer, and everything else had a 1-2% chance):
Barefoot Samms Toppin - Fighter
Giffer Tibbs - Druid
Jack Scrimshaw - Ranger
"Ratline" Rattsberger - Gunslinger (Bolt Ace)
Tilly Bracket - Hunter
"Badger" Medlar - Fighter
Shivikah - Inquisitor
Aretta Bansion - Fighter
Fipps Chumlett - Fighter
Jaundiced Jape - Magus (Mind Blade so he can still be a mute)
Maheem - Oracle
Slippery Sly Lonegan - Fighter
Ram "Narwhal" Tate - Unchained Rogue
I kept their point buys at 15 , even though the group will have 20, and kept their builds pretty tame (to about the same generic, "unspecialized" caliber as they were as Warriors). Keeping in mind that while this will inflate Scourge's forces' potency for the mutiny, so too will it bolster the PC's.
My question to DM's who have already run The Wormwood Mutiny is: will the substitution of classes create any unforseen problems during Parts 1 and 2 of the adventure, and/or create an unbalanced final encounter (assuming the PC's recruit about the intended number of crew mates by then)?
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The attack in the bilges will be pretty deadly if the attackers have PC levels. Its dangerous enough as is.
Personally I didn't even use all the NPCs during the mutiny, because that would just slow down the fight to a crawl. Some of the more colorful NPCs participated (Sandara and Owlbear for the PCs, Conchobar for Plugg), but the rest was just described as fighting and keeping each other occupied (team sizes were relatively even).
I also let the minor NPCs stay in the back and the major ones and the PCs take the lead role in the mutiny.
I also tried to personalize the NPCs, but I did it only after the mutiny and just with the ones that had became relevant. I personalized thenr basically by giving them different skills.
In my case Giffer Tibbs was a cartographer and she had a a good Geography skill, Samms had a good Perception, etc. Like that each one had a defined role on the ship.