...the wizard's damage output increases several times over. If there is no need to conserve resources, there are a lot of encounters where if the wizard gets his spells off its a cakewalk, but if he doesn't its a TPK. Not really a 4e problem, but I think it is an every-other-e problem.
Not sure I follow. Do you mean if the wizard gets his spells back he's all in, otherwise MIA?
Don't forget about the spell book. Traveling with it is risky. That affects a magic-user's travel radius.
If you run Eberron games you are often looking at a month or more of travel, even by road. If you have only a few encounters there is a lot of recovery time between encounters, which means the encounters need to be intrinsically interesting or they don't really contribute anything. Since on the fly random encounters aren't usually that brilliant this means you instead need to generate non-random content, which may be a distraction from the main destination.
I think the crux of your difficulty is the distances, they sound too large to be manageable if you are looking for "travel here, then adventure starts". Remember, the journey is the destination. How cool it is when a party has a long term goal. I would think that only way traveling far in post-apocalyptic worlds would work:
- most of the world is empty/barren (few encounters...preferrably interesting)
- things you bump into are scavengers and have very little treasure
- things you bump into tend to run away from large/powerful parties (less combat XP)
- resource management is about food/water/environment
- everything you bump into ends up capturing you and taking all your stuff (just threw that in because I'm reading John Carter)

On the other hand, if you have lots of encounters (a) the PCs might not survive the journey,
That's fine, right?
(b) they may gain a level or three by the time they get there (overland random encounters potentially have lots of treasure, unlike dungeon random encounters), possibly stopping to train a couple of times along the way. (Like squeen I prefer slow advancement, but some of my players wouldn't stand for it. If I place a lot of encounters between the main bits they will be way higher level than I want them to be.)
Gain levels along the way is not necessarily bad, unless you've got a detailed plan in mind---but maybe then, you shouldn't.
You've got the 2 knobs. Frequency and treasure. Dial in the effect you want. Also, you have freedom to re-write the destination to be more challenging when they get there. I firmly believe longer campaigns (i.e. the Greater D&D) do not work without a DM actively generating content.
I prefer slow advancement, but some of my players wouldn't stand for it.
I admit, I haven't dealt with these sort of demanding players---I don't think I would have much sympathy for them.
I think it bears repeating because it's something that had not occurred to me until recently "vocalized":
without slow level advancement, the characters quickly outgrow the world. As Huso says, the whole domain-play/extra-planear stuff is a viable solution to high-level play (or the equivalent in Eberron), so for an extended campaign, you have better be prepared to generate some. But the question is, how quickly do you want to burn through your nice little world and move on to a very different sort of game?...or requires a
very deep world, and I don't think there's a lot of stuff out there pre-generated to cover all those bases. Has Eberron got it? Put that simple fact to your level-hungry players: If they get what they crave (INSTANT POWER!), it's really game over that much quicker....maybe before they even get to their destination. Twice as bright = half as long. Just a simple fact.
To be clear, I'm not asking for advice here...I'm trying to figure out a mechanical or procedural solution that does not rely on DM skill, or the particular dispositions of the players. Something that can be coherently described, consistently applied, and does not require the alteration of existing mechanics.
That's really a tall order. To restate, you looking for a magic-bullet that fixes the Eberron+4e over-land travel issue, but:
- does not to change anything existing (in the world or the system)
- does not to rely of DM skill (or custom content creation)
- does not demand anything of your players (like patience)
That's a tall order. I know I've been replying here, but before I typed a single word, you probably felt you already knew what I was going to say....and didn't like it:
smaller scale + custom encounters along the way + GP equals XP for slow level advancement = extended travel goodness.
I'll let wiser, more experienced DMs, field it from here. Maybe they have thought of a magic bullet. I may sound facetious, but I
very deliberately down-sized the scale of my playable-world (even the big cities are small enough to be mistaken for large towns, low-level NPCs, etc.) to something managable because I did not feel like D&D had properly solved the problem of sweeping/global scale. We can dream it up---
but we sure as hell can't seem to key it! (That leaves majority improv/rando content, of which I'm not a big fan.)
@The1True : I may be taking it too personal, but who else could you be accusing of gate-keeping other than myself? All the other old-guard seem to have left the building. If so, please don't read too much into my ranting --- I am a proponent of certain style of play, because I think it's fantastic/uncommon and want to spread the word. However, the pitfalls I rail against are edition agnostic. They existed in in OD&D and they exist today. When I see something creeping into prominence in the modern game that leans against the tired-old-aesthetic I'm advocating, I call it out as "rot" because I believe it to be detrimental. But I do that in 1e, 2e, B/X, etc. too. If you want me to stop preaching altogether, then I really have nothing left to say: I can only report what I believe works and/or highlight what I think impedes it---I have no knowledge or useful opinion beyond my direct experience (which is limited, so by now sound like a broken record). If what I'm saying bothers you...I'm sorry. Until something new happens in my game...I've got nothing else to report. Must I keep silent? Can't you just skip my oh-so-long-and-tedious posts? The shorter ones are usually light and trivial.
@TerribleSorcery : Thanks. I really like the sound of your jungles AND (especially) the notion that you can't really recover from a major illness while traveling. The latter is
pure gold...and I'm gonna steal it!
