GreaterThanOne

I don't like them because to me it seems to turn characters into superheroes with swords.  That's not the power level I like running or playing at. 
 
If you're fighting opponents that are slightly too hard for you to affect, the answer isn't supposed to be Moar DC!!!  Figure something else out.  Research its weaknesses.  Use the environment.  Lead it into a pit or off a cliff.  Tie it up with ropes.  Or run away and live to fight another day!  Come back with a dozen mercenaries.  It's not like you get XP per kill... And if you have ordinary  Combat Skill Levels, you can put two of them into +1 DC anyway.  
 
I don't believe that Combat Luck is overpowered, because even three levels is more or less within the range of heavy armor or a wizard's defensive spell, but it just doesn't seem to fit into the power level I like to play or run at.  
 
I also feel similarly about Penalty Skill Levels or any Skill Levels bought with "only for (X)" Limitations.  If your special effect is "I'm so good with a sword that I can do more damage with it," buy more CSLs.  You can also use those CSLs to make it easier to perform a called shot, either to a Hit Location with higher damage multiples or one that has less armor.  
 
Edit to add:  Take a look at my Low Heroic Protocols document, which might give you some ideas.

I don't like deadly blow at all, its just arbitrary damage to simulate a D&D/Pathfinder feat and really ought not be in the game. Combat Luck is problematic in that every character now always takes it with some lame justification by the player "My crippled mentalist is just good at predicting attacks and moving their wheelchair at the last second!"

We have that "Hero in 2 Pages" PDF right here on the website for free download, along with a bunch of other free player-intro documents.
 
https://www.herogames.com/files/file/439-hero-in-2-pages/
 
https://www.herogames.com/files/file/4-intro-to-the-hero-system/
 
https://www.herogames.com/files/file/445-champions-quick-reference-6e/
 
https://www.herogames.com/files/file/367-fantasy-hero-primer/
 
https://www.herogames.com/files/file/479-fantasy-hero-basic/
 

There's a "HERO in 2 pages" PDF on drivethrurpg.com.
 
With some layout/art/presentation updates it could be a snazzy 4-page (one folded 11x17 piece of paper) intro to HERO.
 
Add some character sheets and boom.
 
Think Beginner Boxes like for 5e D&D, Pathfinder, Starfinder, Spectaculars, and others. Done right, high production values.
 
Inside, "Now that you've enjoyed playing the Champions (Defender et al), design your own hero with Champions Complete, available at gamestores everywhere!"
 
Onward and more HEROic!

It fits a lot of genres, that idea came to me as well when I was re-writing the rules to fit into Western Hero.  I suggested it as an optional rule (since I can't just change the rules on a whim for this project), but it completely makes sense.  Its already in the rules that the GM can allow PCs to help a character move up into a quicker recovery area when they are unconscious (say, from recover once per minute to recover per turn) through paramedics or encouragement.
 
 
It fits almost every genre you can imagine to help someone rally when they are dazed.
 
The only real question is how you'd do it?  I think a similar system to the above for recovery would make sense, maybe a PRE roll to rally them, a Paramedic Roll to help them recover, or something logical like helping them to their feet and shaking them.  But the same structure of a full phase action should be followed.  Maybe even ½ DCV to help someone recover.

I can’t seem to like this.  I do and found the same thing.

Right. That brings to mind the admonition in the 4e rules that, "Characters should realize that a Killing Attack is just that - a killing attack. Characters who don't want to seriously injure or incapacitate their opponents should probably choose another Power."
 
Or, as stated in 3e:
 
So maybe it was thought that any balance issues would be addressed by the legal and social implications of KAs.
 

Most of them.
 
Years worth of them.  It's my favorite genre.
 
If you recall, I lamented the lack of the book in PDF so much that I destroyed three of them and hired professional help to restore the art just to create the PDF that is currently in the site store.
 
I was questioned a good bit about my extremely passionate (and long) tirade on the loss of the western and the -- in my highly-opinionated opinion-- detrimental effects that has had on our culture and social expectations of each other.  My computer is sitting against a wall, the other side of which is a bookshelf that runs the entirety of the "spare room."  That book shelf contains my entire HERO collection (except the adventurer's club magazines, which are on the stand on the computer, where they were originally to be sacrificed to create PDFs for the store on this site until Jason suggested I "hold off and wait for an upcoming BOH.").  There is the three-novel Starrigger series by John DeChancie, a couple of Mercedes Lackey books that were foist upon me, Turtledove's "The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump," "Good Omens: the Nife and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch," and Gaiman book whose title I can't recall at the moment but features a baby stroller ("pram," if you speak that "other" english) with a skeletal child sitting up and shaking a rattle, and a four-foot shelf of dictionaries and medical reference books I couldn't quite part with when I finished school (including a dangerously out-of-date pharmaceutical reference.  The remains of that twenty-two foot wall are westerns.  Collected over a lifetime, most of them re-read repeatedly, all of them loved (except the "Sacketts" books.  I enjoy L'amour, but I didn't like the Sacketts.)
 
I don't collect videos, but I am thinking I could rattle off a list of them long enough to bore you, from the old musical westerns to the spaghetti westerns to the handful of 80s deconstructive westerns (I am one of those rare people that didn't like Silverado, though I _loved_ that Louis Gosset, Jr. western (whose name escapes me):
"You shot that man in the back!"
"Well his back was to me!"
 
  
 
even down to Django. (which was hard to watch)
 
My most successful fantasy campaign was an occult western (didn't plan it; it just sort of happened that way.  You know how that goes    )
 
Easily half of my space opera stuff ends up with strong western vibes, just because I like the vibe.  (Again, I don't plan it; it just ends up that way)
 
I can comfortably state that about 2/3 of my HERO gaming has been an dead-even mix of western and cyberpunk (my other favorite genre).
 
But there _is_ a damned good chance that I don't know a stinking thing about the genre.
 
 
 
I don't think I've ever made a big secret that I don't care for the Supers genre.  I played it initially because that's what the GM was running.  I run it now periodically, mostly for youth groups; I do occasional short campaigns with my regular groups when we just want to do something different for a bit-- take a breather, if you will.  I wasn't really a comic book kid, and like most non-comic kids, I grew into a non-comic adult.  There is a reason that just... yesterday?  Day before?-- in a thread in which we both participated I commented that "by the time non-supers HERO games began to be published, we were already playing them, using Champions as the engine, and because of that, we kept a few Champions bits even after adapting the other rules (notably Fantasy HERO, as I was the first of us to actually own Espionage, and I bought it last year).  Not as fully into the whole Spandex Commando scene the way a lot of my contemporaries are.  I discuss it here because 1) I do have some knowledge as it relates to the game and 2) I come here to be social, and waiting for an extended "other genres" conversation gets might dull and dry out here anymore.
 
As for defense 2-3?  Yes.  We're fairly reasonable like that.  We might have a 4 for a trained boxer or even a former combat veteran, or even an unusually large man.  Highest we ever saw, so far as I can recall right now, was a 5.
 
As to a "mountain man:"
 
A bear (or a "bear-like animal," using the 3e book) has a PD of 9.  It weighs between 400 and 800 pounds (with reports of unusual specimens up to 1500 pounds).  A PD of _9_.  The 4e bestiary reels that in to an 8 (and up to a 10 for Polar Bears-- the coolest and most dangerous of marine mammals), but it also states that this high PD includes added-in bonuses from Density Increase.   No human specimens have been found with muscle mass or bone structure remotely comparable, or an amount of tissue density high enough to qualify as an actual power, no matter what mountain he comes from.
 
Now in all fairness, Western HERO was a 4e book, and the 4e HERO / Champions rules were the first exposure to official Normal Characteristics Maxima for a _lot_ of people.  Pulling from that book, it lists maximum human PD at 8.  Or, the way I look at it: the same as the bear with his Density Increase and thousand pound build.  Now there are endless threads out here about where NCM gets wonky or open to problems; I think we can agree on that.  Personally, I think it's because of its origins in Fantasy HERO, with more-than-human adventurers who could go toe to toe with a phalanx of men and emerge victorious.  High end fantasy is low-end supers.  However, I don't expect us to agree on that  (and that's okay.  We're different people with different ideas of what we want out of a game).
 
I would _like_ to think that we can agree that at no _realistic_ point will a 200-pound man _ever_ be as hard to hurt as a damned bear!  For what it's worth, I work with a four-hundred pound man.  He's physically stronger than me. Briefly.  Turns out he gets winded easily and his knees are for crap.  He's just a little bit taller than me, so I'd put him at about six-three.  No; he's not one bit harder to hurt than I am, and I don't claim to be anything more than average.
 
My choice for "mountain man" is a guy I am now working with again (worked him for years some time ago; I now do weekend work with him).  He's the same height I am (six-one), and I swear to you he's damned near twice as broad.  He's got calves the size of his head, and thighs that could easily be the torsos of smaller people.  Sure: he's got a belly, but the man under it is just short of a gorilla.  (PD 5, 4e HERO Bestiary).
 
For us, this gives us an expected range for what we can realistically expect to see in a sampling of the human race:  2 through 5.  
 
Perhaps that sounds outrageous to you.  Let me go just a bit further:
 
Westerns, and our rare Danger International games.  These are the genres in which we stick to this guideline.  Why?  Because these are the genres that we feel are the "most real."  That is, the genres in which the people were just people, using their wits and their tools to make their way through their adventures.  The stories are about _people_.  Real people.  Not Olympians, not mythic figures.
 
Fantasy?  Pulp?  Cyberpunk?  Sure.  those are just stylized supers, when you get down to it.  Run them how you want.
 
But if you're playing a western where a mountain man shrugs damage the way a bear does-- 
 
you _also_ have a compelling western-themed fantasy game going, and I hope you are enjoying it as much as I did mine.

I don't know what book you're using (other than 6th ed), but if you're not using it now, I'd strongly suggest picking up HERO System Basic.  It puts things in much smaller bites, and in so doing, a lot of stuff is actually _easier_ to digest.  Then flip to your bigger books if-- and _only_ if!-- you still aren't clear on something.
 
It will make character creation simpler, too, if only because you aren't so overwhelmed with the monolithic entries for -- well, for pretty much everything-- that the big books offer.
 
Just a thought, but I really believe it will help.

Our group has some basic guidelines we try to follow.  This has proven helpful over the years.  We don't always stick to it though.  Note that these are 5th edition standards, but they should generally apply to 6th as well.
 
--Spend about 10% of your points on skills that can't be used in combat.  Not combat skill levels, not martial arts, not autofire skills, I'm talking about science skills, knowledge skills, mechanics, stuff like that.  Characters shouldn't be sitting around scratching their butts when not in combat.
--The slowest guy in the group should be no more than 3 Speed slower than the fastest guy in the group.  So if the slow guy is a  Speed, the fastest could be a 7.  But don't let some horse's ass of a player screw the rest of the group by not buying it up at all.
--A difference of 3 in OCV/DCV is significant.  If I've got a 10 OCV and the group average is a 7 DCV, then I'm going to hit on a 14-, which is like a 90% chance to hit.  Likewise if I have a 10 DCV and they only have a 7 OCV, they only have about a 20% chance to hit.  This site has probabilites listed:  http://www.thedarkfortress.co.uk/tech_reports/3_dice_rolls.htm#.Xbn_9VVKiUk .
--A normal character should have enough Defense and Stun so that they can stay conscious through about 3 average hits.
--A normal character should have enough Defense and Con so that they don't get Stunned (damage exceeds their Def+Con and they lose their next phase) by the average attack.
--For superheroic games, characters generally want to have at least one offensive power, at least one defensive power, and at least one movement power.
--For an average game of 350 points (400 in 6th ed), it's fairly normal for the damage limit to be 60 active points (12D6 normal, 4D6 killing).
 
So an anime swordsman character might look something like this:
 
Captain Ninja Sword (350 points, 5th edition)
 
Str 20 (very strong for a normal human)
Dex 26 (much faster than a normal human, not technically "superhuman" yet)
Con 23 (damn tough for a normal person)
Body 13 (you don't actually take much Body in a normal Champions game, so we've only bought it up a little)
Int 13 (he's smarter than average, kinda)
Ego 15 (decently strong-willed, but not a telepath or anything)
Pre 20 (an intimidating guy)
Com 10 (just average looking)
 
PD 15 (at the very limits of human toughness -- guy can smash face first into a tree and not lose any teeth)
ED 15 (same -- a hot frying pan to the face will leave a comedic red mark, but he's probably okay)
Speed 6 (he can fight multiple opponents at once, like Bruce Lee in the movies)
Rec 9 (starting value with his Str and Con)
End 46 (starting value based off his Con -- as a martial artist he won't need much more)
Stun 40 (bought it up a bit, to show resiliency)
 
General physical abilities
--9/9 Combat Luck  (shooting him with a gun will basically never really put him in danger -- note this gives him a total of 24/24 Defense)
--Rapid Healing (even if he takes Body, he'll walk it off in a few hours)
--12" of Running (twice as much as a normal man, without even accounting for his high Speed stat)
--20" of Leaping (120 foot jump)
 
Kickass ninja sword
--3D6-1 HKA (4D6 with Str), 0 Endurance, OAF
 
Martial arts package
+2 OCV with martial arts
Weapon element with sword (note: none of these maneuvers are going to add damage to the sword, only martial strike really makes sense as a sword maneuver anyway)
Martial Strike
Legsweep
Martial Grab
Martial Block
Martial Dodge
 
Acrobatics 14- (kinda combat related)
Breakfall 14- (kinda combat related)
Climbing 14-
Concealment
Conversation
Disguise
Instructor
Interrogation
Persuasion
Paramedics
Stealth
Streetwise
Survival
Tactics (kinda combat related)
Teamwork (kinda combat related)
 
 
Scholar
KS: Ninja stuff 12-
KS: Martial arts world 12-
KS: World history 12-
KS:  Ancient legends 12-
 
 
 
That's 308 points so far.  Your basics are covered.  You've got an 11 OCV with your sword (at 4D6 HKA it's at the top end of a normal starting game), so you'll hit all day long.  Your defense is still pretty good (an average 12D6 attack will do 42 Stun, which means you're taking 18 past defense, not enough to Stun you).  You've got enough skills that you're useful in the right non-combat situations.  You've got 42 points left to spend to give yourself stronger willpower, various ninja tricks like smoke bombs or invisibility, maybe make yourself smarter or branch out into another skill area, or to give your sword some cool magic tricks.  Maybe you can swing the sword and launch an energy beam or something (cutting at range), so you want to turn your sword into a multipower.  Those are all fine.  This should give you a basic idea on what a normal character looks like.

I think the question of "What happened to HERO?" treads into territory that can't be meaningfully addressed by "a few highly motivated people" unless those people are very wealthy. I have not seen the intersection of "highly motivated" and "sufficiently capitalized" appear within the ranks of the HERO player community in all the time I've been a part of it (which goes back to 1982). That, combined with the lack of resources available to the current brand holder, is the primary reason the Hero System has not seen any measurable growth while the hobby as a whole has expanded thanks to the explosion of popularity of D&D 5e.

Well said. 
Hero needs exposure to the general gaming community.  And while I know that things like Roll20 and such are the current fad and I can only speak for my personnel experience.  But while I have met many gamers that say they have tried it,  I only know a very very few, three actually, that actively game that way. 
So by exposure I mean the game being played in game shops. 
If a game is played the the shop the store will stock it.  Demand for a product will mean orders.
Now I do not have an answer that will do that.  But I do believe wholeheartedly that the Hall of Champions is a major step forward in the process. 
To me Hero is a classic example of a "chicken or the egg" vicious circle.  Building stuff in Hero and Playing Hero.  You need to play in order to really understand the build part.  But without someone that already knows the game as a guide, many (maybe most) of the new players will not invest the time needed to understand the system when they can play any number of RPG's that are far more easier to start. 
 
I believe that the HoC will provide a much needed assistance for players and GM's that may need a little help getting started. 

I believe that these builds are the best for helping brand new GM/Players.  I could see free PDF with say 6 characters built like these so a new group could grab them and run a sample scenario.  A scenario I imagine would be against Agents (built as Notable). One run through and everyone should get a feel for the basics of combat and perhaps skills too.  I would have some paragraphs explaining that these build are purposefully built simple has to allow people to grasp the mechanics of the game and then encourage them as they feel comfortable to experiment with adding more points and various builds to a character.

Honestly, being a system based on comic books, graphic novels, and maybe manga, I would like artwork which speaks to memories of great comic books in Champions. For Western Hero, I expect nice pulp covers like trashy western novels or maybe like posters in western movies. Same for Star Hero.
 
You get the idea. Does this mean we need to publish our adventure as a comic book? Heck no. But since we are more or less emulating Marver and DC, lets make art which looks like it can come from a cover of one of there comics (it doesn't have to be from "now"...it can emulate any of the ages of comics if we wish).
 
In fact, for a series of short adventures in the "not quite Champions Universe", a cover mimicking a comic book would be cool.

To reiterate what Hugh said before, as long as Shirley keeps that Universal Focus and is conscious or the power is 0 END Persistent (or on a Continuing Charge), she can remain flying.
 
The UoO is the same (assuming the UoO is bought with Recipient Controls the Power) - Flight continues as long as the recipient is conscious, or if the power is 0 END Persistent or on a Continuing Charge.
 
If a UoO power is bought as Granter Controls the Power, then Shirley's Flight continues as long as the granter (e.g. Wally Wizard) is conscious and spending END on it, or if the power is 0 END Persistent or on a Continuing Charge.

Actually there are notable differences.  Reload time is much slower with a cap&ball pistol, some pistols have more rounds, some have a stun multiple, some are better at range, shotguns have an area effect, rifles have great long range ability, etc.  "A gun" isn't any more true than "a weapon" in Fantasy Hero.  A sword is not an axe is not a flail is not a crossbow, and so on.
 
 
I dunno what games you've played -- I suspect few if any in the genre -- but nobody except the lawyer type who is sickly and avoids fights has a 2 PD in Western Hero.  You have the Mountain Man type who is burly as hell and outdoors all the time, so he can take a terrible amount of abuse.  You have the boxer who's trained to take a punch.  You have the Hoss type from Bonanza who's just big and tough.  And even the lean wiry cowboy is rough and ready, can take a punch really well, and has 5 or more PD.
 
2 PD?  Seriously??
 
There's tons of reasons to take 1 point in things.  1 more recovery, 5 more END, 2 more Stun, 1 more Body, it all adds up.
 
I think you guys get so focused on huge stats in Champions you lose any sense of perspective here.  this doesn't seem like any sort of "when I played it was..." so much as from the outside not seeing what is going on inside.

I've got a guess, and I'm coming at this from a different direction than my usual "unofficial Hero System historian" one. 
 
I once wrote a retro-clone of Steve Jackson's The Fantasy Trip.  I was doing very little design, mostly trying to re-express the original game in my own terms, with enough rules changes that it wouldn't trigger any copyright issues.  (I know, you can't copyright rules, only the text.)  
 
I was doing a good bit of reorganizing, and a lot of seeing everything that was in TFT.  I discovered something pretty neat in the process.  Not just superficially, but at the DNA level, TFT is a direct ancestor to Champions and the Hero System.  I mean, superficially, sure, but not just that.  
 
The other parent was, of course, Superhero 2044 and Wayne Shaw's house rules for designing powers in there.  (Thanks, Wayne.)  
 
Looking at those two games together, I can almost mentally hear how the conversations went.  "We're playing on hexes, so of course we're going to use hexes."  "I think TFT has not quite enough stats; S2044 has a number of... weird ones.  Let's organize this, see what we've got, and what we need."  "Hey, superhero comics mostly do a lot of punching and blasting, but not a lot of slicing and dicing" (and here someone is looking over their glasses at Wolverine).  "Yeah, but I still can't figure out Superhero 2044, so let's start with TFT."  
 
TFT's stat scale is more or less on a par with that of GURPS, probably closer to Hero's Characteristic Rolls than the stat values themselves.  
 
The very basic six stats pulled from D&D, of course.  Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, back in the day, but since we're organizing the system, let's organize them so the groupings make sense.  Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma.  
 
Hit points?  Yeah, let's look at those.  We'll scale our hit points to the same level as the other stats.  
 
Playtesting shows that if we use hit points at this scale, and weapons or other attacks that do 1-3d6 of damage, we're seeing results all over the place.  
 
All right then.  How about some form of nonlethal damage?  Let's tweak numbers.  
 
If we scale our nonlethal damage at something like Strength + Constitution, and use Hit Points for lethal damage, how does that look?  
 
Easy.  The Hulk and The Thing will be almost impossible to put down.  So let's tweak those.  Half Strength + Half Constitution?  Too low.  Basic Hit Points should probably figure into that somehow...
 
So now our nonlethal damage works pretty well... we roll dice, subtract that from nonlethal damage capacity, and maybe roll this different set of dice to subtract from hit points... 
 
(Cue a lot of discussion, a lot of late night pizza and beer, a lot of waking up at night in a cold sweat...  I mean, we only got a small dose of this in SETAC.  They were staring into the unfiltered abyss of balancing Normal and Killing Attacks...) 
 
Okay, but shouldn't nonlethal attacks do some hit points?  How about one per die?  
 
Okay, but hey look, I just rolled a bunch of 6's on this damage roll.  Shouldn't those hit harder?  
 
Yeah, okay, but then 1's ought to not hit as hard.  
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
The above imagined conversation happened in my head at first over about ten seconds, then over about the two months or so I was writing the retro-clone.  I mean, the first thing I wanted to do was add nonlethal damage, and there are only so many ways to do that.  
 
Later, on the Facebook group (when I was still on Facebook), Bruce Harlick more or less confirmed to me that yes, they were playing a lot of TFT in those days.  I don't imagine there were direct lifts, but I mean, when you're playing a lot of one game, and designing another, it's pretty natural that there's going to be some filtration.  

It totally is Zen. 🙂  It's theory wank, but designers and tinkerers love theory wank!
 
GURPS is a hybrid of a "details matter" and "reason from effect" game. Equipment, the physics of actions and the world, the skills. Tons of details (differentiations). The "Powers" system of ads/disads, etc. starts with moderate details but allows you to customize with the "reason from effect" paradigm. You can take some power constructs and bend them to things you want to accomplish that don't necessarily fit the name of the power. GURPS seems more fiddly than it is because of the hybrid. Sometimes you are constructing a power that obviously the power you want. Other times you end up in a fog trying to file the rough edges of something where the details are not helping.
 
HERO is mostly all "reason from effect". It's about creating a generic framework of system bits that then cover the majority of "things you can do, things you are made of, things that can happen to you". It forgoes lots of the differentiation of similar things for flexibility. All these powers are basically building blocks you use to construct "all the things". There is a consistency then to those things. Sometimes however, these things can get "weird". So, a gun being set up as a "beam"... I'm like "that's not a beam! it's a projectile!" and HERO is like "dude, relax, it's just a mechanic. Describe it how you want to." 😄 
 
The truth is they are both great games with savvy design and TONS of thought put into them. I own tons of GURPS 4e and GM'd it for a long time (and played/GM'd a ton of HERO 5er before that!). I've moved back towards HERO because it focuses on the details I want. I love magic, powers and the like. I want the ability to customize those the most. I don't care so much for equipment lists, skill lists, or even physics emulators. HERO leans more "story-based" in this regard. In my opinion it has less calculations or laser-specific rules that just fits how I GM.
 
It comes down to preferences. Each person is going to find the parts in one of these systems they prefer over the over; and then likely choose it because it fits them. The rest of the debate is just theory, highly subjective and difficult to measure.
 
Just my two cents...

Weird, I find that Hero is often at its best at the Heroic level.  Especially Fantasy Hero.

Just my $0.02:
 
I find it depends on the story you are telling.  If you are telling a story like "Xena: Warrior Princess", where the hero always has their trade marked sword, staff and chakra, then it makes sense that they should buy the items.  If you are doing a more traditional RPG style approach (especially those which promote murder hobos), then the building of the weapons is not necessary so long as you have a good idea of how powerful the items are relatively to each other.

For the most part, in Hero, we don't really care whether our target dies, as much as we care whether our target is "out".  Whether that's dead, unconscious in GM-discretionland, unconscious by 1 and staying down, whatever.  For genres where the primary attack type is Killing, we can pretty much get all of that from Hit Locations plus sectional defenses.  It's not laid out for you right in front, and it's not a Champions-style or even D&D-style slugfest.  You have to take advantage of cover, you have to Brace & Set when you can, you have to use CSLs, and most importantly you have to have a team.  
 
I'm aware of how... vociferously... IRL gun enthusiasts discuss the... vast differences between, let's say, a 10mm round and a .40 S&W... and, I mean, is there really?  

Eh, never worry about wasting time. If you have questions, ask.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but I'll give it a shot.  (No pun intended...)
 
Why aren't the guns in Western Hero built with Powers?
 
In Western Hero, and most "heroic" level campaigns (Fantasy Hero, Pulp Hero, etc.), "mundane" equipment for the setting doesn't cost points.  It's treated more or less like equipment in any other game.  There's no edition change; really, it's more of a power level toggle.  All the way back to the first non-superheroic Hero System game (Espionage!) in fact. 
 
If it was something special within the setting -- for instance, a magic item in a fantasy game -- it's very probable that it would cost points and would be built with Powers.  
 
We've got at least two threads going on in other parts of the forums talking about almost this very issue, and some participants (meaning me) can't seem to make up their minds about it.  Except not really, it just gets into deep theoretical system discussion.  
 
The general rule, though, is that in non-superheroic genres, mundane equipment doesn't cost points and often isn't statted up with Powers.

Before I get too far into the weeds, I know next to nothing about Hero. I am, these days, mainly a GURPS player, but every so often, someone tells me that Hero is the superior choice, more fun to play with better character design and so on. I'm interested in looking into that somewhat, but I have a snag.
 
I don't know how better to do a comparison between the two than to look at GURPS Old West and Western HERO, since I love Westerns, but having only read Western HERO and the 6th Edition Basic Rules, I was confused about the treatment of guns in Western HERO, which seems just like it might be treated in GURPS or anything else.
 
Am I missing something? Was this an edition change thing? Or, for the sake of simplicity in the setting, was that particular part of character creation ignored for this one particular genre book? Am I going about this all wrong and ought to be trying something else to compare the two on somewhat level ground?

In 5E, you didn't get any defense against the STUN of KA's if you didn't have at least some resistant defense.  That was changed in 6E, as GTO noted.