Christopher R Taylor

You're right about Persistent; I didn't look hard enough.  Trigger actually says that if the character dies, what happens to it depends on the circumstances.  (6e1 p. 350.)  Which is a shorter way of saying common sense, dramatic sense, and so forth. 

The rules for Persistent or inherent note that your powers stop working at death too, I believe

In addition, the other problem with having it just attack over and over again for a few phases as it doesn't put in consideration all the things the target might do. What if the target decides to middle deflect, is the missile's OCV based on the phase it is attacking on, if that is so then why would it have an increased OCV just because it is attacking a second or third time? Also, what happens if for some reason the target is no longer able to be hit after the initial attack?

Like some of the others, I don't care for (but also do not dispute the validity of) the Duplication technique.
 
However, I actually kind of like this "side effect" you've pointed out in the mechanic.
 
I actually _do_ like the idea of a finite number of extra lives!  I think I am going to add this little quirk if I ever get around to statting up Adam West's greatest character:  Timmy Turner's Catman!
 
 

Well, what I mean is this.  Some very, VERY fast characters in the comics have outrun the beams for several pages at times, staying just ahead.

Right, thanks, Rogers art.  Another top notch 70s artist who never seemed to get enough work.  I think he was really slow.

Problem is that eventually you will run out of Duplicates and then the creature is permanently dead.
 
 
You don't need a compound power. Resurrection is part of Healing.
 
 
If that's the case what is the point in having Duplication, Resurrection will automatically bring the individual to life. If that is what you are looking for, just have triggered healing with Resurrection.
 
Healing BODY 8d6, Resurrection, Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger requires a Full Phase to reset; When Character is Killed; +1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Expanded Effect (BODY, STUN, & END) (+1); Does Not Work if Character Is Not Attacked After Dying (-1/2)
 
I heard that there was a stipulation that it would not work if the character was not attacked after dying so I added that in.

That's actually Marshall Rogers doing the art. "The Laughing Fish" was written by Steve Englehart, with art by Rogers. Great story and pretty well adapted into the BTAS cartoon. 

Iron had its advantages in a lot of areas even in its crudest form, just not for stuff like swords and armor.  Arrowheads, for example, could be harder and sharper, and thus better.  Armor was heavier and more brittle so not as good.  At least that is how I understand it.
 
One of the things that archaeologists are finding is that people were working better material earlier than previously understood.  Vikings were making damasked steel from lumps of rock found in swamps, for example.  Many of the assumptions of the "dark ages" etc from the 20th and earlier centuries are being undone.

Iron had its advantages in a lot of areas even in its crudest form, just not for stuff like swords and armor.  Arrowheads, for example, could be harder and sharper, and thus better.  Armor was heavier and more brittle so not as good.  At least that is how I understand it.
 
One of the things that archaeologists are finding is that people were working better material earlier than previously understood.  Vikings were making damasked steel from lumps of rock found in swamps, for example.  Many of the assumptions of the "dark ages" etc from the 20th and earlier centuries are being undone.

For my part, I've always been fascinated by cultures and worldviews that are the most different from my own, whether historical or alien. The closer an era or location gets to modern Earth, the less it appeals to me.

I don't like find weakness either, but... Karnak from the Inhumans was based entirely around this, as well as a few other characters, so it has its place, but not the way it was built in the old rules, in my opinion.
 
I always understood double armor piercing to simply be a way of negating a level of hardened, not that it quartered defenses.

There is a "Christian RPG" called Testament that is set in that kind of time period too, has a lot of interesting source material.  I think there's some interest in a Bronze Age Hero book, but probably not a huge amount.
 
 
For some reason Europeans like really dark, doomed, miserable stuff, especially the Brits.

There are a couple of products available in DriveThruRPG that deal with the Bronze Age, but you'll need to convert them to HERO: 
 
Into the Bronze (OSR): https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/318919/Into-the-Bronze--OSR-Bronze-Age-Sword-and-Sorcery
 
Mythic Babylon (Runequest): https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/355333/Mythic-Babylon
 
Glorantha, Runequest's default setting, is also has a late Bronze Age or early Iron Age level of culture and technology.

The Robin Hood Campaign Classics book is by far the best of the series, if not the best sourcebook ever printed for FH.  There's an incredible amount of detailed lore about life in England in the Middle Ages, including folklore and mythology.  There's FH stats that were actually developed by someone who knew FH (as opposed to just converting the RM stats).  There's even--gasp--adventures, in defiance of the ban on published modules for FH.  Even the art and layout are top notch.
 
It really stands out because it's the one book that shows what Hero is capable of at the lower end of the spectrum.  (Robin Hood himself comes out to 80 points IIRC.)  And it actually makes you want to play low fantasy.  Ultimately, though, that is the book's one fatal flaw--it's low fantasy when the rest of the world is playing D&D video game fantasy.  But if you can get hold of a copy, do so; it's worth it even if all you do is read it.

Honestly I think a Roman Empire era fantasy game could be a lot of fun.  But my real dream is to create a bronze age fantasy setting -- very low magic, very low tech.  Conanesque.  Akkadian empire, etc.

The Vikings book would be quite germane to this topic, if one wanted to focus on that era of European history from the Viking perspective. Very good historical, cultural, and game-mechanic material, plus some decent maps and illustrations. I expect the Robin Hood one would be too, for a campaign with that focus; but I've never seen that book, so can't speak to it.

It took me years but I finally managed to get all those books.  The Vikings one took the longest, people charge outrageous amounts for them for some reason.  Some of them are better than others (I think I like the Robin Hood book best).

In WotC's case, sure, yuck.  Pure corporate greed at work.  
 
But there's nothing inherently wrong with a committee working on a game as long as it's composed of actual designers, or at least knowledgeable fans of the game/genre who are trying to create a good game instead of just maximizing profits.  Collaboration is good for creativity.  It's not even bad to have someone on the team who's looking at things from a marketing and manufacture POV, as long as they understand that profit is not the sole (or even primary) goal.  Doesn't do much good to write your perfect game and then discover you'll have to charge so much for it that it's practically unsellable and no retailer will ever carry it.  Monte Cook dances around the limits of that issue sometimes...  

I tend to ignore BODY once the current adventure is over.  Start of next adventure, everyone is hale and hearty.
 
BODY damage, as you intimated, should raise the stakes during the adventure and players should be adapting their tactics to ensure their injured comrades are not unduly exposed to further BODY damage.
 
Doc

In all honesty I don’t want combat to be simplified.  If that is what I am looking for I will play a different game.  The reason I play the Hero System is I like the tactical flexibility of the system.  I don’t want the game reduced to roll to hit, and damage.  I want to be able to dodge and block and perform risky high damaging strikes and all the other things that Hero System allows. That being said speeding up combat is a completely different issue.   To me that is what people should be focusing on.   Since the math seems to be the main thing that slows down combat speeding that up is where we should be focusing.     
 
Rolling dice and figuring the results seems to be one of the biggest time traps in the game.  Working with larger numbers usually slows down people's calculations.  For most people it is easier to figure out 7-5 than it is 37-12.   When you add in multiple steps it gets even worse.   Rearranging some of the formulas can speed things up.  The formula to figure out the odds of hitting is OCV +11 – DCV, but if we change it to OCV- DCV +11 it will speed thing up for most people.  For example, if I have an OCV of 15 and my opponent has a DCV of 12.  Using the traditional formula, you get 11+15 =26, 26-12=14.  Using the one I suggest you have 15-12=3, 3+11=14.   The end result is the same, but you are using smaller numbers.  If your players have had a few drinks or are tired helps even more.
 
How you count dice can also speed things up.  Figuring out the BODY does not need to be complicated.  Just roll the dice and ignore everything but 1 and 6.  Count the entire die that have 1 or 6 and find the difference.  If there are more 1 subtract that amount from the number of dice you rolled, if there are more 6 add it.  After that start sorting the dice in groups that equal 10.  For example, pair a 6 with a 4 and set those slightly apart.  Continue doing so until you have nothing left that can be added together to equal 10, and then count the rest. Now you simply count the number of groups and add the last result.
 
When dealing with the targets DEF a way to speed it up is to count out the targets DEF and then count what goes over.   This can be combined with the method above.  Doing this you would still sort the die in groups of 10 until you get to near the targets DEF and then use individual die to equal the DEF.  After this count the remaining and that is what the target takes.   For example, if the target has 12 DEF and took a 10d6 attack, pull off 12 (probably a group of 10 and a die with 2), then start grouping the remainder of the die by groups of 10.  Count the groups by 10 and add the remaining die.
 
Many of you are already doing these things, but someone new to the system might not be.  This sounds complicated but in reality, it is very simple.  This works best if all the stats are known to both player and GM.  If you GM likes to keep the stats of your opponents a mystery or is using some other method for combat it does not work as well, or the GM needs to do all the work.    
 

I don't recall that particular one, but I've read at least a half-dozen similar stories over the years.  The Plague makes a good change point for alt-histories, as does fiddling around with when Europe and the Western hemisphere make contact (and who initiates it).  Authors seem to love putting Europe under the thumb of colonizing outside powers, which does make good irony if nothing else.
 
   

Yeah there are tricks to make fights with agents/goblins/mooks faster and easier.
 
The classic is to assign each one a number of hits they can sustain before they drop: 1-2 for the regulars, 3 for the sergeant types.  No matter how hard the hit is, they take two hits, they drop. 
And don't let bad guys recover unless they are important or have a role to play.  Once they go down, they stay down.
Treat stuns as knockouts for all but important enemies.
No power pool changes unless you have the powers written up in advance.
If someone can't figure out what to do in 30 seconds, they hold and go to the next on the hit list until they figure out what to do.
 
Really familiarity with the system is the biggest key: if everyone knows their character and what they are doing, it goes smoother and quicker.