I add a kit to an NPC. Restart the server and the kit is no longer equipped to the NPC. I've tried saving right after adding it. Is this normal behaviour? Is there a way for me to get it to stay on the NPC? This is driving me bonkers so any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have kits on Huntsman and guarded crate plugin (as well as botspawn bots) and no problems so far, might be something in your config(s) , try to redeem the kit yourself (as admin) to see if it contains anything, the kit contents should also show up in the gui