Page 29 - Heroic Abilities: I have a concern here in that poor advancement rolls not only punishes those with poor luck by slowing down skill gain, but also prevents heroes from acquiring new abilities because they can't get a skill to 18. I feel rules for the acquisition of heroic abilities should be independent of skill advancement checks.
Also, recommend maybe giving examples of grand heroic deeds, but perhaps there are specific examples in adventures that can help here.
Another possible optional rule, which would favor a focus on one's profession, might be to tie heroic abilities to triggers within those professions. So a thief, doing epic thief things, could help get heroic abilities faster.
All in all, the changes in beta 3 make it much harder to gain new heroic abilities. Or heavily slants gaining new ones towards the end of a campaign. Perhaps there was some feedback previously that too many heroic abilities created an imbalance? Not entirely sure if that's a concern since all these abilities cost WP.
Personally i am pretty okay with the changes. As i was gming i noticed players could grow particularly quickly in skills, so slowing down the pace i think was a good idea.
As for heroic abilities, it is up to the gm to decide when the players do a "Grand heroic deed". Considering it is written (page 29) "This should be a rare event, never more than once per standard-length adventure." it still leave some leeway to how often you can do it.
For example the party recives an quest to venture to a nearby troll cave and deal with the troll that keeps raiding the town's stables, they venture foruth and someway somehow stop the troll from doing it again, they can get an heroic ability. Then they hear of a evil wizard doing some wicked magic in his tower in the mountains, so they venture fourth, and someway somehow put a stop that, and they can get another heroic ability.
I think the intention is that you shouldn't get TOO many heroic abilities, but there isn't anything really stopping the gm from handing them out if they think the players have earned it.