Homebrew Crusader ACF - help needed with design

[ChudoJogurt]

We play a level-7 low Tier-3 game, with a very tanky Crusader. One of the aspects of the game is that there is almost no divine magic, and therefore healing is kinda hard to get.

The player has recently complained that playing a tank without in-combat healing is hard for him (despite ridiculously high AC) and that it's tedious to keep track of the Steely Resolve pool. I kinda agree with him on the second part, if not the first, and I offered him that I'd allow to trade away the Steely Resolve for something that would enhance his tankiness.

However, I have trouble balancing it out properly and wanted to ask for this forum's help.
The options I considered were:
--Lay on Hands instead of Steely Resolve.
The bonus is that it's a healing. The drawbacks are that (a)It's kinda negligible, with Charisma 12, (b)it's kinda hard to explain without divine magic. As in - what would be the actual meaning of his Lay on Hands if it's not channeling a positive energy through divine connection?
--Rage (or some alternate form of rage that gives DR and Constitution, but not Strength).
I feel that rage is such a central mechanic of the Barbarian class that getting it from trading away
not even a secondary but more like a tertiary class feature is bit too much.
--DR as Barbarian.
DR 1/- seems kinda lacklustre on the seventh level.
--Temporary Hit Points.
The question is how much, and how many times per day so that it would be balanced.

I'd love to hear some experienced DM's opinions on this.

[DeTess]

Out of curiosity, why isn't this crusader bringing his own in-combat healing if he believe that it is necessary for him to function as tank? There's a number of devoted spirit maneuvers that provide some healing.

Anyway, if he is set on trading away steely resolve, you're also going to have to remove/change furious counterstrike, as it depends on steely resolve to function. I think something like temporary HP would be the most thematic, and to keep it relatively simple I'd make it something like at the start of each turn, you gain X THP (with the THP explicitly not stacking with the previously gained THP gained form this feature). I'm not sure how much I'd do. maybe equal to the steely resolve pool divided by 5 or 2.5?