What book is Soldano from again?  I thought it was core but my search has turned up nothing.  Castille? Swordsman's Guild?

If I remember correctly, the original Soldano was all about fighting multiple enemies at once. What about something like:

Soldanos are a vicious whirl of steel and death, striking and eliminating multiple targates quickly and efficiently. When a Soldano performs a Slash, they can divide the wounds they would deliver from that action amongst as many Brute Squads or Villains as they like.

Although, that might take away a bit from Valroux's thunder...I think it had something about attacking an additional target.

Ok, looking over the original in the Castille book.  It's tough, and I'll admit I'm really not comfortable enough with the new mechanics to just riff off the top of my head.  I'm with you, though.  I'm hesitant to make it just another +damage ability.  That just seems like the easy way out.

What I find interesting is the Master level, which is all about Intimidation.

"Masters of the Soldano school have learned to thoroughly enrage and outwit their most dangerous opponents.  One per round, at the start of a Round in which you are engaged in combat with a Villain, you may use an Intimidation action against the villain without spending an action.  Add 1 to the roll for each Brute you've personally killed in this fight and 5 for each Henchmen.  If you win, instead of the normal Intimidatin effects, you steal one Drama Die from the GM, plus an additional die for every five you won the roll by."

Now, I'm not really sure about the whole "steal a drama die" business, but are there any of the abilities that let you deplete the danger pool?  So that might be something unique.

You could let the Hero add his Intimidate skill to his attack roll (Finesse+Weaponry+Intimidate).

How about this: "You get to roll Finesse+Weaponry+Intimidate for your Approach.  When facing a villain (not brutes), if at the end of a round your opponent has exhausted his raises while you retain at least one, you may spend a Raise and a Hero Point to immediately cause a dramatic wound to the villain."

I dunno.  That seems to keep to the spirit of the ability.  

Alternatively, you could do this: "You get to roll Finesse+Weaponry+Intimidate for your Approach.  When facing a villain (not brutes), if at the end of a round your opponent has exhausted his raises while you retain at least one, you may spend a Hero Point to reduce the Danger Pool by the number of raises you have remaining."

Thoughts?  Does it show that I haven't read through the dueling chapter that closely?

Oh I like the idea of playing into intimidation. You could take advantage of the new Pressure mechanics in some way, maybe something like you gain a free raise when using Attack+Weaponry to use to apply pressure on a Villain or Brute Squad to surrender or flee. Basically getting a free action to essentially intimidate them into spending an extra raise to do anything other than surrender or flee for their next action; if they don't have 2 raises remaining, their options become either lose their turn or surrender/run away.

I do also like the idea of stealing from the Danger Pool...perhaps something where You get to steal from the Danger Pool and make the Brute Squad or Villain role 15s for their Risk for the next Round. Something like if you eliminate a Brute Squad or deal a DW to a Villain, on the next Round, your target has to roll 15s instead of 10s for their declared Risk.

After reading through the duelist styles last night, and taking Sal's comments into account, here's what I got:

"When fighting with a rapier in either hand, you may employ a maneuver called the Soldano Whirl. Once per round, you may add your Intimidation to your damage (weaponry+Intimidation). Also, at the end of a round you have pressured a villain and have taken no damage, you may "steal" a point from the Danger Pool. You may use this as a Hero Point."

Something like that.

My entry into the field:

Style Bonus: Soldano Boast

When you wield a fencing weapon (such as a rapier) in each hand, you can perform a special Maneuver called the Soldano Boast. You can only activate Soldano Boast on your Action, immediately following a Parry or Riposte maneuver, and you may only use Soldano Boast once per Round. When you perform Soldano Boast, deal a number of Wounds equal to your Ranks in Weaponry plus your Ranks in Intimidate. You may deal 2 less Wounds to steal a Danger Point from a Villain and convert it into a Hero Point you may use before the end of the next Round. If you do not use the Hero Point by the end of the next Round, it disappears.

True, and it is true to the conversion.  I just always found those hard to track, especially when you have a bunch of players running all over the place.  Letting them grab 1 HP a round for their trouble may not lead to much bloat depending on what else the player is doing.

Well at least the player is the only one to really track it for himself or herself.

John

We do that in 1e Sal. I use transparent gold dice as the drama dice you 'get' and I've colored in the 8,9,10 since when you spent one of those Drama Dice it would turn into XP if you rolled an 8-10 on it. The ones given out at the beginning were opague purple and didn't turn into XP.

Here's the approach I'm currently taking for my own conversion of Soldano

Style Bonus – Soldano Flourish
When you wield a fencing sword in each hand, you may perform a special Maneuver called Soldano Flourish.  Soldano Flourish deals a number of Wounds equal to your Ranks in Intimidate, and also removes one Danger Point from the Danger Pool.  You can only perform this Maneuver once per Round.

I opted to forego the free Hero Point/Drama Die and focus much more on the intimidation factor, both in terms of damage and reducing the Danger Pool as opposed to straight damage output since a major factor of the old Whirl Knack (making you effective vs. brute squads) is by and large covered by the Slash Maneuver already.