And I’d likely use them as written, because I’m all about giving more narrative control to the players whenever it works — I would, however, require the player to narrate the effect of the hero point, as in “at first, my sword thrust seemed as if it might glance off the bugbear’s hauberk, scoring his arm with only a minor wound … but at the last second, I was able to deftly turn the blade upward into its armpit, dealing him a critical blow!” as opposed to “yeah, I would have hit anyway without the +20, so I do double damage.”

They get to be heroes, but they gotta describe to everyone how heroic they are!