Thats an interesting link, someone actually put some thought into the combat ideas, even if the setting looks blatantly cribbed from R.E. Howard's notebook.
As for death handling, well, I'm not sure. I do think the concern playing a meta game with save/load tricks is something a developer doesn't need to worry about. If thats how someone wants to play the end product, then whatever. Its not really worth the effort to try to stop it, any more than its worth trying to stop someone from alt-tabbing out to a walk-thru or reading a strategy guide. Save the effort for the system itself.
Before I get to the death in games, lets talk some of the problems that lead into death issues. Hit points and phat loot, since they've helped degrade the genre quite a bit. Now, some shit I can deal with. Modern fantasy magic, as OTT as it is, can be entertaining, interesting and even fun to play. Even magical healing, and yes, healing potions don't bother me as much as they probably should. But thats largely because of the fun to play factor. Do I swallow a gimmick? Sure, but 'real' healing, done properly, would probably involve sitting idle for 15-30 minutes while a month of game time passes. Not fun.
On the other hand, scads of hit points and a shitload of magic items sits poorly on my concept of fantasy. The magic items especially since 1) it clashes so much with myth and decent to good quality stories. No one is carrying around thousands in cash on their backs. 2) Most systems involve either the creator giving part of themselves (in some fashion), or ancient races leaving this crap lying around. Even in context of a fantasy world, why would this happen? The lack of logic (internal to the proposed system) is baffling. 3) Its often structured badly. Starting town provides basic crap, regardless of size or circumstance. Town before the final encounter sells uber shit like it came out of a frickin' factory. 4) Finally, it involves no real sense of accomplishment. The character didn't when the fight, the Awesome Set of Magical Uberness did.
Hit points (or whatever) are another abstraction gone to the absurd. The basic concept isn't entirely unreasonable, and somewhat useful as an abstraction, particularly if fleshed out in an intelligent way. D&D, once upon a time, described HP as a mix of durabiltiy and luck. Well and good, and at 1st and 2nd level, perfectly acceptable. You might have to get stabbed a couple times with a dagger, but a good solid whack with a big axe is going to put your ass down. At higher levels, though, the 'abstraction' gets stupid as you are clearly 'hit', and hit repeatedly, with a bloody great axe (or whatever). No amount of suspension of disbelief gets around this. It just gets dumb.
(And yeah, I'm getting to death. I'm just wordy tonight). The solution that occurs to me here, is putting a strict cap on HP. A base number, based on size classification, modified by constituition/stamina/ whatever stat and durability training, but capped at say, double the original amount. A hero of legend might survive a solid blow with a bloody great axe, but he isn't going to take two (or at least stay upright for two). The advantage to throwing a size classification into is it allows for big monsters like giants and dragons to sneer at swords and axes, the same way you'd sneer at a toothpick and a pen. Yeah, someone who knows what they're doing and are damn luck can take you down, but its going to be a serious effort. Fleshing out the HP system slightly would involve skipping over the unconscious at 0 concept. Put a medium range in there, 0 to -half CON, (or whatever). Staggered, bleeding out, and really messed up, but able to do some things at a penalty. Completely out past that, and finally dead at negative CON. Nicely dramatic, pseudo-realistic without getting horribly complicated, and (once we get to death), a reason to protect your characters. Especially against ruthless enemies. A thug in an ally probably won't take the time to make sure your downed companion is dead, but the demonic minions of evil likely will.
Now I'd want to do some other things along with it, like say armour reducing damage (or better, converting some to non-lethal damage. You aren't getting cut to ribbons as much, but you're still getting bashed around some. Plus you can do a faster recovery time for that sort of thing and not stretch the magical healing idea quite so far). Most of all, I'd change defense into a matter of skill, much like attack. Screw magic items of +n. Focus on the skill of the character, not the crap he's carrying around. Add in some extra stuff. For example, take out the Attacks of Opportunity if you're using D&D as the basis. Instead, give characters options when attacked- a set number of 'responses' per round parries, dodging, counterattack (basically giving up your defensive action to attack simultaneously, when you know the enemies defenses are down). So instead of combat being about who can do the most HP damage, its more a matter of a contest to see who's skill triumphs.
Finally, death. An unconsciousness system combined with an armor system like I mentioned opens up a lot of ossibilities. For one thing, we can make magical healing default to healing non-lethal damage. Your bruises and battering can be cleared up right quick. That huge gash on your arm, probably not. Now, as the party healer gets more skilled with his magic, he can start healing lethal damage (say, it converts on a 5 to 1 or 10 to 1 basis, so if he can heal 15 points of nonlethal damage with a single spell, under the first option, he could heal 3 points of lethal damage instead). Serious wounds, which put a character under 0, or even worse, past - 1/2CON (unconscious) could have serious side effects. Scars for diplomatic penalties, leg wounds for movement penalties, etc. With time or serious magical healing (which you'd have to work to mid to late game to learn, or shell out a boatload to a sympathetic healer) some of the penalties could be overcome, but they would not something you'd get over while out in the field, so to speak.
And finally, actual death. Under a system like this- I've got to say suck it up. You're character has his skills, and everything he can do to avoid failure, and you've got some leeway (albeit with consequences) and you almost won't be killed outright in a single blow. And if you're getting dropped a lot, you should have put more points in your characters defensive skills, or put soem thought into your tactics instead of charging in blindly.
Ressurection. Nope, sorry. You've got enough options as it is. Unless the setting really calls for it (and few do), rezzing is out on its ear. Maybe that once in a life-time divine intervention (and I do mean *once*, with lots of fun consequences with karmic debts to the gods). You can either live or die with the consequences of your actions, or you can be a pansy and reload.
I also like the idea of minions to do the bulk of the dying. 'Yes, we four alone must defeat the Dark Lord of Cliches'. 'Well actually, Sir Vercengetorix of Lava Lamp, I was going to hire that mercenary band to help us out. Because your way is stupidly suicidal.'
Personally I've never seen the need for Ironman mode. Just show a little willpower and don't reload everytime something doesn't work out the way you want it to.
. Anyway, you're right. A long lasting war can be faught over generations. Say, you have different landlords fighting over a realm. That would leave the player with enough choices as to which faction he'd like to side with - if any. I'd still call that more part of the setting than story though.
