Good suggestion it is pretty lethal, but then I guess that is the point.
The Fate tokens go a long way towards mitigating the completely lethal nature of the Reaper. Mind you I did manage to throw two consecutive ones killing my poor Priestess outright at Raiders!
How about bargaining with the Reaper so that instead of taking your livesit takes maybe a strength and craft instead if you have already used all of your Fate tokens? It would have to be something that really, really hurt though.
If you wanted to be a wuss or play with children I suppose you could always lose a life as normal instead I guess.