[Thaumatology] Syntactic Explosive Fireball Question

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by MWnRNC

That might work, but it still results in a substantially more expensive spell. Using Control doubles the cost of the the Noun (in this case, Fire) used to 8 energy. Control also feels like a bit of a cheat - the spell isn't used to manipulate the fire beyond adding that additional damage effect.

Really? My read of THM 186 is that there is a casting penalty for the extra verb, but the caster chooses the verb that determines energy cost, so it is still only 6 energy to cast.

As for being a bit of a cheat, almost everything with syntactic magic is a little fudgey, due to the very limited vocabulary. If Time were one of the nouns available, then maybe you'd have to include that in the casting, too. But I don't know what other verb than Control would define specific parameters for fireball detonation.