Sketchpad

The reason I am for them is because they encourage players to have their characters do heroic, risky stuff because there is a safety net.  Sometimes players are a bit precious, this helps them loosen up a bit.

That isnt entirely true.
 
I do it- well, I do more what Doc Democracy mentioned: static attacks against variable defenses- in my Traveller on HERO wheels game.  I only do it in ship-to-ship combat, though.  I have considered doing it for personal combat, but  as I use hit locations (sort of) in that game, it never happened.
 
Here's the thing we don't talk about: everything considered the strengths of the HERO System results in near-perfect predictability without GM tweaking on the fly.  Attacks are bought in dice, and they will average 3.5 STUN and 1 Body per die.  Defenses subtract from damage.  We even talk _around_ this:  
 
"Set your campaign guidelines so that perhaps X percent of a given "standard attack" will make it through "standard defenses" and those Killing Attacks?  We have created a mathematic scale demonstrating that one killing die typically gives results like 3 normal dice.  Also, SPD scores shouldn't vary too much, maybe 2 or 3 points of variance for best results--"
 
And all totalled, one day you realize that you can look at a brick and a martial artist, check their damages and defenses and relative SPD and state "okay, roll a d8.  On a 1 or a 2, he drops you in 2 Turns; 3 through 7, and you drop him in 3 and a half Turns.  On an 8, something surprising happened with the dice- half of each team is out cold; we'll draw straws" then skip around the table just like that and say "okay, it is five Turns later-  Blaster, you're still out cold, but Speedster has cuffed all except the other speedster, who escaped after flattening you, Magician."
 
And once you see it, you really, _really_ can't unsee it (my appologies to all of you who haven't seen it before).
 
With starship combat-  well, guns of a size get through armor of a size, and guns of a lesser size never ever will.  So everyone gets the gigantic guns, vaporizing everything but the gigantic ships, which comes down to "roll a d12, etc, etc, then we'll roll percentiles to see how much of the surviving ship is destroyed."
 
It got depressing:  I couldn't have a merchantman persued by a military ship because the result was _always_ the same:  a party from the military ship examining the smouldering ruins of the merchantman while some,of the lower eschelons buffed the blemishes from their Hull cause nlby the merchantman attempting to return fire.
 
So we tried something:  we bought ships weapons in damage ratings, and we bought armor in dice.  And things got a lot more fun-  sure, the freighter's missiles might do 15 Body and the dreadnaught has 10 dice of armor, but the freighter suddenly has a chance that it absolutely did not have against 30 DEF.  Space combat became deadly again.
 
There was more I wanted to say, but I am at my daughter's graduation, and the music has finally started, so....
 
 

I remember Horror HERO book existing, but it is not one that I ever managed to pick up.   I think I see what you are going with here, but I think we might be veering off into the more detailed world of Specific Genre Emulation and outside just straight PRE attacks as they are RAW.
 
To clarify:  Horror HERO could be many things and all of them will change how PCs interact with the world.   Cthullu, Bram Stoker, Freddy or Jason films, The Mummy (any film version)... and if you are being liberal enough with definiations, even something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Scooby-Doo.    In all of these how the PCs interact with the world would be extremely different and you would need player buy-in even more than raw mechanics.  In my experience it is a rare group of players that doesn't rankle, at least a little, at dice telling them what their character believe.   Much like how using Bluff type skills on PCs when the players know the truth doesn't always go well.
 
Can you tell us a little more about the Style of Horror game you are trying to go for?  That might help with trying to figure out how to tailor the mechanics to try and support it?
 
For example.   Someone it trying to run a Cthullu type game and wants PRE attacks to be used to show how the unnatural horror and dread of magic and these alien creatures will break the minds of characters over time.   Instead of trying to create a Sanity-Saving Throw roll off defense mechanic, perhaps as part of the game all characters get 100 points of Sanity Stat.  Whenever a PRE attack happens, any amount of the roll over their PRE/EGO stats reduces Sanity and there is no fast means to recover it.   You could even say that once they get to half levels they start to get new Complications/Disadvantages based around the things that have been affecting them, let the players pick the new ones or GM could assign something.    (sure this is probably really close to just Call of Cthullu's system... but there is no reason that this cannot be grafted to HERO.  Basically as part of the Genre for the Campaign, the characters have a 3rd 'health' track to add to Body and Stun and it just is how the game operates.   You can then tailor things so that most "normal" Horrors have PRE attacks that should on average chip always at least 5-10 Sanity and work with your players to let them RP the effects of it.

If more mechanical effects are needed then perhaps at lower levels of Sanity say.. 33 or less, it causes a long term Drain on the PRE/EGO stats for characters to show that not only are they running out of Sanity... but also their hold on reality is starting to break.  Even just a few points reduction would have noticeable effect... I feel a little goes a long way on that.   Going from 20 to 18 or something like that would be more than enough.
 
--
 
All of that being said PRE attacks are very one sided by their nature, the danger of changing that element of the mechanic is it certainly will slow down gameplay which might be detrimental to the tension of the moment.  A static defense system (probably with some form of ablative limitation would be the smoothest way to keep the game flowing.   Each PRE attach chips away at the characters stoicism until they are down to just baseline PRE/EGO going forward.   The only other thing I could think of is just to allow Mental Defense to help protect against PRE attacks.... but then you run the risk of needing HUGE dice pools of PRE attacks to get any effects at all.   
 
Finally, how common are the PRE attacks against players going to happen in the game?   If it is just one or two per session then being at the mercy of what the DM rolls is not that different than getting hit with and NND or other exotic power type.  However if they are much more common, then I would expect players will buy more PRE/EGO naturally to help protect themselves more... and also keep in mind that each successive PRE attack against a target gets less and less dice each time.     That FIRST zombie that burst through the door really scares and shocks the players but the 2nd and 3rd following it?  Well... they are still scary for sure, but the adrenaline is already pumping at that point and Fight/Flight responses already are in swing.... so they get less and less dice against the PCs....   but that crashed Ghoul leading them is a fresh horror.. so would get full attack when it shows up.      (at least I think this is how the mechanics work still in 6e...  can't recall fully off hand.  Either way, in my experience PRE attacks were usually PCs vs NPCs/Enemies and often only done once at the start or end of encounters... not repeatedly)

@Sketchpad It looks like, to answer your original question, nobody's tried this method before, but that doesn't mean it's not worth testing out. If you do get a chance to try this in a game, I'd love to hear what the feedback is, as I can see the potential advantages and, like you say, it's interesting to see how far you can push the system. Even if you have to reprice defences, or change the mechancis more to balance things out, I think more tools in the toolbox can't be a bad thing. So please don't let the downsides dissuade you, since there's no harm in trying out new ideas like this.

At this point, it'd be a smarter move for them to update and release such an item themselves. They've already reproduced the two Watchmen books as you mentioned, plus some info from the Doom Patrol Moonshot module in one of the Doom Patrol omnis. I could only imagine that they own enough of the rights to either reprint, or create a new edition in-house. 
 
Honestly, my personal wishlist has some licensed superhero games released powered by the Hero System. I know it's unlikely to happen, but I'd still like to see it.

I've done a little playing around with the probabilities and I've noticed that, assuming 5 EGO gives you 1d6 for your roll, you'll be rolling fewer dice on average than the attacker would in a normal example. You can get around this easily enough by reducing the target number set by the attacker's power (so a 12d6 power might give a target number of 30 instead of 60, for example), but the reduced variance means you'll be much less likely to get greater effect results. I played around with making greater effects kick in at EGO+5, EGO+10 and so on, and that gave you much higher chances of the greater results. So there'll probably be an answer somewhere in the middle, but that's one thing to watch out for.
 
Of course, if you're happy either way, you can accept that it'll play differently to standard HERO and just treat this quirk as one of the features of the new system. I'm sure the original design of HERO wouldn't fall apart if EGO+10 results were more or less likely to occur.

That's ok, much better than Hero Machine art.

So the description is a bit sparse for Heroes in a Hurry, and I'm wondering a few things...
Is it basically templates for powers, skills, etc.? Is there anything there for the veteran player? What types of heroes can be made using it? Are there specific power types?

Fun idea, Doc.

I never quite understood this one either. In the games I've been working on, I've brought back a variation of the 4th ed Instant Change and made it a Talent. 

I never quite understood this one either. In the games I've been working on, I've brought back a variation of the 4th ed Instant Change and made it a Talent. 

I never quite understood this one either. In the games I've been working on, I've brought back a variation of the 4th ed Instant Change and made it a Talent. 

See, if I was going to buy into this, I would have Deduction 3 reduce the moderate difficulty of 6 down to average difficulty 3, and then roll the standard 3 dice. It takes away the potential for the expert to roll a result of 12 but it better demonstrates the value of the skill. 
 
I would also not make the skilled character roll for an average difficulty task, their skill has reduced it to 0 difficulty, play into the competence...
 
GM: As you are walking through the Great Hall you can see there are doorways and galleries stretching away into shadowed recesses.
 
Player: Great place for an ambush, can I see any sign of one.
 
The GM knows there are 3 archers in two of the upper galleries (moderate difficulty check) and a more poorly hidden (average difficulty) swordsman lurking near a doorway.
 
GM: "what's your perception? 3?  Quite impressive!  You can see a swordsman near a doorway to your left, roll the dice to check if he has back up."

How does any of this actually pertain to Hero as written? Doesn't much of what's being discussed here technically change the system beyond what we're using? How would rolling extra dice slow down play any more than, say, rolling damage? To me, it looks like we're changing some of the basic rules of Hero. 

It's an interesting idea. Skills could be easy enough to implement in as an adder to the effects. You may want to use a Difficulty system, like needing 6 successes (aka BODY) to achieve a moderate action. Skills could add to this, or even add more dice into the check. So if you have a INT 15, rolling 3d6 for the roll, but also have Deduction 3, this may add 3 more dice in, rolling 6d6 when making Deduction checks. 

@Jason S.WaltersAny chance we might see color HC of the 6th ed books at DTRPG/Amazon/Hero Shop in 2023? I'd love to get a few copies of books like Fantasy Hero or Star Hero, but would rather have a copy closer to the original. 

A family thing came up; wont be home until tomorrow.  I appreciate the offer, but honestly, it will be just as easy to copy the file to the flash flash drive and drop it in the mail Monday.  It works well,enough: that is how we did Western HERO, Horror HERO, Cyber HERO and the Adventurers Club books, so I have to say that the method is quite well-tested.   
 
 
Oh, and if you are wondering, no: no one is hurt or injured.  I had a chance to pick up a running, low-miles Goldwing engine and gearbox for the sweet price of "come get it," but it had to be gone be today, and it was quite a ways to travel....
 
It is a "family thing" because we all went, just for some together time, so we havent hurried at all.
 
 
 

I agree, Doc. I've been working on a new layout for stats that strips the numbers out. 

To me, it is a build sheet, one with ALL the numbers. Useful between sessions but less useful on play.
 
I prefer stripping away the extraneous details and numbers.  Almost no-one but the GM needs to know the real points of powers or skills.

It has a lot of Hero Games B&W stock art from previous products. I  didn't see anything new.
 
ETA: I have the draft version from the Hero Games Patreon. The finished product might have different (better) art.

Interesting. This helps a lot, BJB. Thanks!

Interesting. This helps a lot, BJB. Thanks!

Obviously not a free peek, but the PDF was released in sections through the Hero Patreon. I've been laid low by covid and a post-covid lung infection, so although I have the files I've yet to even start reading them, I'm afraid. 
 
Glancing at it now, there are indeed nine sample characters at the end of the book. The format is various modules you assemble to make a character. I'll put a screenshot of the ToC here, which of course I'll remove if it's not acceptable to do so:
 

While he's Flame On, Johnny should have some heightened defense, maybe some Damage Reduction (particularly for Heat), Flight, and, of course, a Damage Shield. In some stories, he's also slightly Desolild too. There have been some comics where Johnny's gotten some power boosts, and that may be what the article is referring to. The previous story to the current had Johnny consistently radiating heat and flame due to something Doom had done. He's recently returned to his normal self, only with a porn 'stache. 

I saw it there
I asked if there where hdc files
Otto said no and he does not have HD
for me the Hero Machine pics where a turn off on the GA characters