Yeah, this was third edition, and she specifically took a couple feats so that she had a lot more control over it. It would still backfire occasionally. I did have one wild surge that almost killed her. Wild surged a chain lightning spell, rolled a nat 20 on the surge check, the spell did double damage, and back flashed half the damage at her. She took 78 points of damage, thankfully I had 82 points, and the cleric took one look at me and slapped me with a Heal. Needless to say the 10 bandits that I fired that off at were unable to absorb 164 points of damage each, and they all quit the fight, having died.

Funnily enough because she also had a pseudodragon familiar, which gave her the [Improved Evasion] feat, she was the only spellcaster that ever was capable of hitting her with lightning or fireball.