reworking Forge of Fury for my group

I'm about to run Forge of Fury in my campaign but instead of four characters of levels 3-4, our group is seven chracters of 7th level.

So I'm looking for ideas on things to change, either for that reason or just because it's more interesting or whatever. Since the whole point of this thread is to pick the module apart, I'm not going to bother with spoiler tags, so please skip the thread if you're concerned about that.
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And now, on to those spoilers. The characters have already heard that the halls were taken over by orcs, so I'm planning on leaving the first level (the Mountain Door) more or less as is, though I'll give the orcs increased class levels and numbers to make it an appropriate challenge.

Likewise, I'm not planning on extensive changes on the lower levels (the Sinkhole and the Submerged Lake). The roper encounter was overpowered in the first place, so I probably will leave that in as it's more appopriate now with my current party. I'm definately planning on having a dragon battle at the end, though it's up for grabs which dragon. This will be the first significant dragon encounter of the campaign, so I want to make sure to make it memorable and challenging. I'm either going to keep it as a single black, make it two blacks, or make it a red. For minis, I have access to one black D&D mini from Dragoneye (I can't remember if it's medium or large), the huge red from Giants of Legend, and the as yet unpainted and unassembled Deathsleet mini from Reaper.

On the other levels, it's pretty much up for grabs. In the Glitterhame, I have two grick minis, so I could run that beefed up or replace it with something else. Same with the trogs tribe and their pet bear. On the forge level, I'll probably keeping the duergar (but using psionic versions), though they'd be new to my campaign so I'd have to come up with a backstory for them. I could take or leave the allip. I'm not too fond of the animated furniture, so I'll probably either replace that or leave it out. Also, I've already got a prominent succubus in my game, so I'd want to switch out that encounter too.

Finally, I should add in that one of the party members is a dwarf descended from Durgeddin, so the mission is going to be personal. I can work in some story hooks there, maybe making some of the dwarven tombs/corpses family members or something.

Wow, sorry about the length of that post. If you made it this far, any ideas to share? Has anyone tried anything different that worked out well?

- Orcs with class levels (check).
- Troglodytes with class levels (check).
- Change the Troglodyte chief to a Druid, and make the bear (or whatever you choose to replace it) his animal companion.
- As many people have suggested in various FoF threads, I have made the trogs worship the Roper, but if we're talking about beefed up Trogs, then it probably won't make much sense, since they could very well kill it, unless you beef up the Roper also, and then the Roper remains a fight that the PC's are almost guaranteed to lose.
- I have removed the succubus, because I really didn't like that encounter. I have replaced it with a Nimblewright, which was orderer do defend the (dead) Dwarf Sage's library. The Nimblewright is an intelligent construct (from MM2, IIRC), totally loyal to its (dead) master, but absolutely bored. It has met the Duergar chief. The Nimblewright can't leave because its duty is to guard the library, but if the PCs suggested that the library be moved (to a city, whatever) and they help it with the move, then it'd be ok with that, and quite happy also (as happy as an intelligent, rapier-wielding construct can be) to get out of this hole and back into the world.
- Duergars with more class levels (check)
- Bigger, badder dragon (I'd keep the black dragon... Or you'd have to replace it with another aquatic dragon, because of the access by the lake).

Of course, you'll have to change the treasures, especially the Durgeddin blades that can be found. Perhaps you could introduce some magical smith tools (hammer, anvil?) that the Duergar have found and are using to create special weapons. Durgeddin's descendant should be adamant about getting these items back.

Hope this helps.

AR

I also made changes to FoF when I ran it.

Alot of the changes I did were similar to what you mentioned.

Gave the Orc Class levels to make them a challeng and bumped up the Duergar as well.

For the Trogs, I actually had them having been recently wiped out by a drow party that had just tunneled up into the glitterhame.

I also bumped up the dragon an age catorgory or so to be a good challenge for the party.

The idea for the Nimblewrith is cool, wish I had thought of something like that for my rework.

Good ideas, thanks.

As for the first level, I ended up keeping the number of enemies the same, but increased their levels. Most of the orcs are either Ftr5 or Bar1/Ftr4. Old Yarrack is Bar1/Ftr6. Great Ulfe is an ogre Bar5 and his two pets are dire wolves. I haven't reworked the shamans yet but it'll be something similar.

Does this sound fair or is it too much?

The party is all 6th level and consists of:
Ftr5/Pal1
Ftr6
Bar3/Dwarven paragon3
Psion (telepath) 6
Evoker 6
Rogue 6
Ftr2/Clr 4

...and there's a Druid 5 with a pet wolf that may or may not be joining them.

Thanks for re-routing me Davelozzi! Maybe we can work together on this.

Since my party is very fighter heavy, i'm going to have more orcs on the first level but give them class levels like you did. When it comes to Ulfe and his wolves, i think i need more than 3 monsters in there. Maybe ulfe has a consort for them to contend with.

How are you going to change Burdug, the orc adept? Are you keeping her as adept or giving her cleric levels or something like that? The adept class didn's seem to pack much punch. Not that i want to overwhelm my players but i dont want a cakewalk either.

I ran forge with a large and higher level group as well. Here's a link to a thread I started on the subject:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=44789

It went fairly well. In addition to what I listed above I increased the number of stirges. I left the griks as is (the party only had one magic weapon, they were a pretty good challange). The trogs were all given a level or rogue or a few sorcerer levels. For all the huminoid opponents when I added class levels I also threw in about 20% extra war 1s (or classless trogs) as mooks.

The adventure ended in a near total TPK on the ainmated rug. Though I think I made a bit of a rules error by allowing it to grapple more than one person at a and waiting for 3 of the party members to be standing on it before it attacked (the psion used psycoportation to get out)...

The cleric I made a cleric 4 or so with the death domain (since I had a good number of undead scattered around the upper level).

One thing I never posted on the last thread, this is what I ended up with for the roper replacement.

The roper becomes a creature with the stats of a shadow hydra (6 headed). The chamber beyond the river is weakly linked to the plane of shadow. The Trogs worship this creature as a god and feed sacrifices to it. "A creature with dull splotchy grey and black skin, the lower body a hulking mass of muscular legs each wnding in a massive obsidian-black claw. Six twisted snake-like necks, each ending with a gaping maw of black void sorrounded by uneven rows of jagged opal-white teeth, petrude nearly 12 feet from this base. A single pale yellow cat-like eye at the center of the lower body stares at you from the shadows of the cave."

Shadow Hydra (6 headed) Huge Magical Beast; HD 6d10+30 (63 hd); Init +1; Speed 30' (swim 30'); AC 15(-2 size, +1 dex, +6 natural); Atk 6 bites +5 melee (1d10+3); Face/Reach: 20ft by 20ft/10ft; SQ: Scent, Cold Resist 12, Shadow Blend (9/10ths concealment in shadow), Fast Healing 2; Saves: Fort +10, Ref +6, Will +2; Str 17, Dex 12, Con 20, Int 3, Wis 10, Cha 9
Skills and Feats: Listen +6, Move Silently +7, Spot +6; Combat Reflexes

Stats are for 3.0. I love templating hydra, I don't know why...