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Honestly, I'd start the players out at level one and throw some moderate stuff there way to sort of test the waters. Hard to kill enemies also help but so do numbers, never underestimate the dastardlyness of lots of kobolds... I STILL have nightmares about kobolds from my first few campaigns as a player.
8 players at 7th level...
First disallow the feat Leadership outright it will just add more fuel to the fire.
Second don't worry so much about killing some of them of they are at the level where soon they will have raise dead and breath of life themselves and currently working with and affording the services of npc's who can do it now is normal.
Third and more to the point have the players keep track of things for you, one of them can keep track of and call out initiative orders another can keep track of spell and effect timers, ect..
Fourth and really to the point build encounters that let people shine, without knowing the party make up this is hard to say exactly what but the idea is let the 'tanks' have high damage high AC opponents to stop, let the area effect guys have tons of mooks to kill, ect....
Ohh and don't focus fire with all the mobs on one PC with twice the monsters on the field all of them just attacking one guy is going to drop him/her.
I'm with Cornelius..Novice GM, 8 players, 7th level sounds like a recipe for disaster..remember when building encounters that their APL will be something like 9 or possibly 10 depending on what point buy you are giving them.
An example encounter at that level.
Start by reading how to build an encounter on page 397 in the main book.
APL for a group of 8 7th level characters is 8. (average level plus one for having six or more players)
This is going to be a challenging encounter so APL +1 gives us the CR of the encounter. That is a CR 9 encounter with an XP budget of 6,400.
There are 2 cyclops and a young green hag with one level of witch out side the cave entrance to a coven of hags. The young hag is using disguise self to look like pretty young human woman who is under gaurd by the cyclops. She sits in front of a large couldren when combat starts she uses a move action to stand and open the couldren releasing 2 swarms of wasps.
This gives the group alot to think about 2 heavy hitters who will open up with a charge on the closest threat and use their ability to take a '20' on the charge attack most likely critting and doing a good amount of damage.( I would trade out improved bullrush for vital strike and use power attack on the opening charge.) The witch will hex her oppents and start draing strength with claw attacks. Going invisible if she gets hurt to much. Not a power of the hag or witch on paper but assume she is in some sort of mental control of the wasps and have them act with her tactics so avoind hitting the cyclops or her until she is slain and then just have them behave normaly.
If the party has an easy time of this have the hags inside notice and use animate dead from inside the cave on those killed outside making zombie cyclops ect... this is not by the book as animated dead is normally limited to range touch but this is the cool stuff DM's get to do and break the rules for bad guys as long as it is cool and fun.
Based on ability scores of the party and player builds give the cyclops gaurds some better equipment to increase armor class and maybe masterwork weapons.
Have one of the treasures for the encounter be a wand one of the hags can use to make life difficult for the party like confusion.
The next encounter will be with the hag coven in the cave using veil to hide some nasty terrain. Make it a CR 10 challenge by using a night hag and two green hags.
Ohh and players die a lot more often the once or twice over twenty levels. This is not a movie or novel this is D&D and the good guys die all the time that is why spells that bring them back are pretty common at higher levels.
Don't forget to read and use all the monsters abilities that is what makes them interesting and different. If all you look at is AC, attack , and HP then all monsters start to be the same.
Like with the cyclops they have that one time a day take a 20 ability, they also use x3 crit weapons great combo. Use cleave and great cleave once they are below 0 h.p because ferocity limits them to a standard action before they drop at negative con.
Another encounter that should scare them and possibly put some down.
CR 10 encounter. Hydra Vault.
A 55 foot by 55 foot room with 25 foot tall ceiling. At the center of the room is a vault door in the floor to the treasure inside. The floor around the vault is covered in arcane runes that change between glowing green, blue, and red. 10 feet from each corner is a huge (15') statue of a hydra with their heads all looking at the vault door.
Their are really two traps here one that is going to go off no matter what and one that is easy to see and maybe some help during the fight.
As soon as a person not attuned to the vault ie the players get withing 10 feet of the vault door the statues come to life. As soon as a statue is attacked all of them come to life. Before they animate they look like normal statues providing light for the room by way of ever burning flame spells cast in the statues mouths. If attacked in this form they have AC of 2 but give them the hardness of stone 8 and the first 15 points of damage goes to destroying the inch of stone surrounding the hydra.
When the hydras come to life the stone incassing them shatters and all squares withing 10 feet of them become difficult terrain from the debris.
They are 4 CR 6 pyro-hydras that open up with their breath weapons don't forget they have combat reflexes so even if they loose initiative they can still make two attacks of opportunity each.
The obvious trap in the center of the room is a variant of Frost Fangs trap on page 421 of the main book. Since the trap is obvious to all who enter the room the perception check is DC 0, the disable check increases to 25. A knowledge arcana roll will let someone know the function of the trap if the door is messed before disabling it attacks everything within the room with 3d6 energy damage for three rounds. Reflex DC 20 to take half. The energy changes every round and is tied to the color of the runes in the floor green = acid, red = fire, and blue = cold.
If the party sets the trap off during the combat with the hydras they could do so on a green round and inflict acid damage to all the hyrdas or it could be set off with the red rune glowing and the hydras are immune.
Again don't focus fire 20 attacks a round from the 4 hydras is plenty to go around. Spell casters will find only the very edge of the room a safe place to cast spells or use ranged weapons. If you focus fire with the breath weapons make sure it is on the monk and rogue so that they can show off with evasion. Worst case situation they are all grouped together when the hydras break from the stone. Give them perception check DC 10 when the stone starts to crack apart and those who make it can act on the surprise round. The only thing the hyrdas do this round is come to life and make the difficult terrain. Ohh and make the continual flame spells expire that were on the statues possibly plunging the room into darkness.
