Ninja-Bear

You say that like "CHARGE!" isn't a battle plan!

Game Masters should only call for a Player dice roll if the outcome of it provides an interesting result to the game.
 
Example 1: our heroes are leisurely Climbing a building, with tools, out of combat. All else being equal: automatic success.
 
In the above example, there is no time specified. Remember, certain tasks take more than a Phase to complete unless a penalty is included.
 
Example 2: Gone in 60 Seconds, car theft; no penalty to Security Systems roll if a minute or more is allotted to this task. If there is no car alarm, surveillance, time constraint, etc, automatic success for taking a minute plus to steal the car.
 

I’ve just finished book one of the Condor Hero series and my wife got me book 2! Its cool reading about all those tropes from the original.

Well I had player in Star Wars D6 who burnt character rolls like candy and still couldn’t make his target number and its still just memorable. I’ve also made bad rolls where a HAP really would’ve helped. Jumping over a person and landing on a small child really ruined that game. GM later admitted that that was something he shouldn’t allow to happen.  Still memorable but for the wrong reasons. The point of the game is to have fun and a little bit of fantasy fulfillment correct? Correct use of HAPs doesn’t take away from it.   

Well I had player in Star Wars D6 who burnt character rolls like candy and still couldn’t make his target number and its still just memorable. I’ve also made bad rolls where a HAP really would’ve helped. Jumping over a person and landing on a small child really ruined that game. GM later admitted that that was something he shouldn’t allow to happen.  Still memorable but for the wrong reasons. The point of the game is to have fun and a little bit of fantasy fulfillment correct? Correct use of HAPs doesn’t take away from it.   

I’ve just finished book one of the Condor Hero series and my wife got me book 2! Its cool reading about all those tropes from the original.

If such adjustments are left to GM's discretion, I would assume they would only be made in exceptional circumstances. That's certainly how I approached the issue.
 
If you can't trust your GM to not be abusive, nor to let your well-earned victory fall to blind luck, IMHO you're in the wrong game group.

Allowing a reroll still doesn’t guarantee success either. So you still can have that adversity. 
 
Lord knows I’ve had run of bad rolls that it wouldn’t matter how many HAPs I had.

I like Hero points because they compensate for having no writer.  Here is an example of what I mean:
 
I had a brickish character whose conceit was that he was a "bloodguard" that he was part of a long line of people through history that were chosen by God to protect someone and keep them safe.  These might be nobodies who have an unknown impact on the world, they might be someone important and obviously historical.  In the game, the ward was one of the other PCs who was a bit of a glass cannon, he was big on utility but light on defenses.
 
The ward got into trouble at the top of a building (the team split up and came from below and above) and my character was at the bottom floor.  So he flew into an elevator shaft, and flew straight up as fast as possible and did an armor piercing move through on the roof of the elevator to get out in time to save his ward and do a neat presence attack.
 
I rolled all ones.  I'm not even joking, every die ended up a one.  I did zero body to the elevator shaft and bounce off it, taking no damage.  Thankfully the giant bang was enough to distract the bad guy but... really?  My big moment ruined by a catastrophically bad die roll?  This was a perfect, beautiful moment for the splash page, to do my duty and fulfill my character's purpose, turned into a humiliating and frustrating failure.
 
In some campaigns that kind of thing is fine, it fits the theme and tone. In most, though... not so much

At $20, when I get a chance, I’ll likely just pick it up. I’m sure it’ll be useful.

@Doc Democracy, I would still go over racial templates. I remember that the Halfling template had bonus to Stealth skill however if you don’t buy the full skill then the extra skill levels can’t he used but the character still paid points for them. 

As I've written elsewhere on these forums, Hero's Turakian Age is the fantasy setting I go back to the most often, and the one I've tinkered with the most. TA was deliberately written to resemble D&D in many ways, so that gamers accustomed to its conventions would find that familiarity (although there are a number of distinctive elements). That includes the "demihumans." In the books about TA there are hints and even a few explicit statements regarding cultural differences between different groups of the same demihuman race in various parts of the game world. The approach I took is to increase the "footprint" of demihumans in the setting, making them more widespread and impactful in some cases; elaborating on the spectrum of their interactions with Men and other races; and making their cultural variations more explicit. Game-stat wise there isn't a lot that's different from the default "Heroized" version of D&D, but their attitudes and motivations are more diverse and distinctive.
 
I won't inflict all my thoughts on the subject here. People who are interested can look up the forum thread linked in my signature, on which I blather on about it at some length.   But I will touch on Halflings, since Ninja-Bear mentioned them and they probably were more subject to my process above than the other demihumans, so make a good illustration. In some places they're pretty much the standard D&D Halflings, but certainly not in all.
 
Per the official history of TA, Halflings were once more widespread, but after Men arrived in their lands the Halflings were gradually, often violently, forced out of the best regions and toward the less-desirable fringes of civilization. Most of them now live in lands ruled by Men. Some Halflings have accepted this reality and get along reasonably well with the "Big Folk," but others still harbor distrust, resentment and even hatred toward them.
 
In TA there's one nominally independent Halfling land (which I moved to a location that suited my purpose better). I built up more of how they live and govern themselves when they aren't under another people's thumb. I added a history of Halflings having come there to escape that thumb, so the attitude of distrust and resentment toward Big Folk is much more prevalent among them. But they're also tributary to a neighboring, more powerful state. In some years it's difficult for the Halflings to gather all the annual tribute, which I figure would be a good motivation for one of them to go adventuring, to try to acquire treasure to help their people.
 
One of those fringe areas I mentioned is noted in the TA source book as being quite rugged, and having been settled by tough, independent-minded, outdoorsy people. That includes a large number of Halflings, who refer to themselves as "Mountain Halflings." I made it more explicit that they're more outgoing and assertive than their kind are elsewhere. The sort of people who are more likely to take to an adventurer's lifestyle, and less likely to take guff from larger folk.
 
The Free City of Aarn is the largest city in the world of TA, and is noted as having a particularly sizable Halfling minority. This appears to be the biggest concentration of "urban" Halflings in the world, and makes a fine origin for characters with that background. I decided that Aarnese Halfings have integrated well into Men's society, and found niches in which they thrive. For example, they dominate the Bakers and Brewers guilds.   They're also major players in Aarn's Thieves Guilds, where their small size and natural stealthiness is frequently a great advantage. I decided that the mysterious "Lord Ebon" who leads the city's largest thieves guild is actually a Halfling who conceals his true nature from all but his most trusted underlings, so as to project a more intimidating image.
 
Another historical detail I invented is, when Men started driving the Halflings out of their ancestral lands, one group of them fled into the far North away from the Big Folk (an area the writer of TA left deliberately open for GMs to develop), where they evolved a lifestyle and culture reminiscent of the Inuit of Canada and the Sami of Finland. However, with the rise of Kal-Turak in the North (the setting's "Dark Lord"), those Halflings have been pushed ever farther toward the margins of habitable lands. Some of them might become desperate enough to head south looking for a better life, for help defending their people from Kal-Turak, or for a new home for their people.
 
By the way, I gave the Halflings of various areas distinct names that they call themselves identifying their homelands, besides just "Halfling" (which is clearly what Men chose to call them). I did the same for the other demihumans. After all, Americans don't call themselves "Humans from America." But most of those names would require explanation of the changes I made to the setting to understand their context, which isn't necessary to this discussion.

The last time I attempted this I mixed up the races' habitats.  So I had:
 
Wood dwarves, who took a very hands-on approach to maintaining their immaculately landscaped forests
Cave elves, whose narrow skulls and spidery, flexible limbs let them squeeze into unbelievably tight crevices
City halflings, who were excellent at architecture and commerce
 
Never really got to actually play this though.

At $20, when I get a chance, I’ll likely just pick it up. I’m sure it’ll be useful.

Same here.

Agreed, after '85 so were mine. Dungeons however have a much simpler template to plan on and in truth to play in. 

Dungeon? I’m Fantasy Hero? What is this of which you speak? This isn’t D&D!!😁. Most of our adventures were outdoors in the weather. 

Yeah until you look at a spell in Hero and after the wall of text due to Advantages and Limitations-especially custom limitations then you’re dazed for a few rounds. 

I think you just describe all of Hero System with that  😁

Many "undead" in Hero System publications have been built using the Automaton rules -- skeletons, zombies, mummies, and the like. Automatons as their default ignore mind-affecting abilities like Mental Powers or Presence Attacks, since they lack consciousness and free will, i.e. "minds" in the conventional sense.
 
This Complication means that Presence Attacks which are defined as some form of Necromancy (spell or innate magical power) will affect undead Automatons, substituting the Automaton's Intelligence score for Ego since they lack an Ego score. What counts as Necromancy in a given campaign is up to the campaign's Game Master to decide, although it usually includes magic spells defined as affecting undead.
 
You may notice that published Hero Games robotic Automatons have a comparable Complication, "Affected by Cyberkinesis," which is the technological analogue to Necromancy for that purpose.

Same here.

And you get to round down to the Hero’s favor there as well!

And you get to round down to the Hero’s favor there as well!

I believe you modify the STR first THEN divide by 5 to get DC. And don’t forget to round in Hero’s favor!