Falc

@creative-username Yeah, but if you have a 50% chance of a chaotic result, then it has to be truly chaotic. The actual odds of that backfire affecting the shooter would be (at most) 1 in (your entire human population). The odds that it will be negative let alone lethal to the shooter are maybe a tenth of that? And that would be about as likely as the backfire causing the sun to pop out of existence. If anything can happen when that gun is fired, then ANYTHING must be possible.

How exactly do you get to a 50% chance of "lethally backfiring"? How does your magic manage to read the shooter's intentions to such a degree that the only possible results seem to be the desired outcome, or the exact opposite? Because without that mind-reading aspect, you're left with a 50% chance of something completely random happening, of which there's probably only a slight sliver of a chance of that leading to the shooter's death.

@LinoFrankCiaralli Player agency is, to a large degree, why I said that I would prefer to have the Sorcerer make a roll to really hide his actions, rather than only allow the counterspeller to roll. And all of this only in the very particular case where one caster is specifically waiting for the spell (to counter it) and paying full attention, while the other is specifically trying to hide his spellcasting from the first caster.

@chrylis: I think you should handle that the opposite way, namely putting the onus on the original caster. They're the one spending the sorcery point, presumably because they know there's a chance of it being countered. So I would have them roll first, maybe Stealth or Sleight of Hand or Concentration, in order to cast the spell truly without any indication.

@Chry

I would be very interested in knowing which "manual tasks the robots cannot perform" your humans are working on... Because I honestly can't think of any. Answering that question in more detail might clear up what options the humans have for communication.

Just a little comment to point out that you may very well be able to find names that don't sound cheesy right now, but it is subjective so in 10 years time maybe it will have become cheesy...