Hate it as well. We have used it in the past but none of us were fans. Our current game is a combination of Trailbalzer, Conan RPG, Pathfinder, 3.5 D&D, and 4e along with house rules throughout. We have no in game healing during combat. This works very well for us with armor as DR and buffing a limited selection of spells to work with. If you want to heal during combat, Bears Endurance or Mass Bears endurance come in handy. It is nice going in knowing what you have and when it's done, it's done and combat does not lag on and on. Not for everyone but it works great if you give it a try. None of us thought we would like any of it but now don't want it any other way. Active defense is also in play which keeps players involved. It is fun to roll off against the DM and it does not slow down game play.
With resurrection, it is not there. Instead, we have Fate Points that we use and took from Conan/Trailblazer I believe. However, a little twist with them. You get one every 5 levels. You can never have more then 2 at any given time. You can use these to alter a crushing blow that would otherwise kill you outright to make it miss. You can use them to change the story. You can use them to take down spells etc. They are your get out of jail free cards. However, you cannot use them to save someone else. This works well for us and we have a campaign that is played twice a year for 3 marathon days along with an online campaign between sessions. Last session over MLK weekend, we started with only one of us having one left at 9th level 3 ticks in to 5 ticks which would level us. We do not use XP as well. Instead we are awarded ticks for combats of significance and this works very well. Our campaign is in Midnight but Clerics do exist and are very rare drawing powers from trapped entities when the world was severed. In our last session, our Paladin was trapped behind a wall of force and doomed. He had 2 at the time and elected to use one to bring the wall down so we could get to him. We went through others as well and one player did end up using 2 and died at the very end. It was depressing but he got shredded from a dragon. This is a good fix to resurrection and Big Baddies may have them as well. Fun stuff.
