One of my players asked me if his character can dismantle his shotgun, so that he can carry it around without being noticed (lowering concealability penalties). We both have dismantled and put back together assault rifles in real life (although he can do it a lot faster, being way better trained), so this seems perfectly logical to me, not to mention fitting his character perfectly - a gruff bounty hunter.

I want to allow him to do it with an agility+relevant weapon skill test (difficulty 10, 1 combat round). If it took me a minute or two, and him 20 seconds, that seems about right. I would appreciate any thoughts on the matter.

Final note - I warned him that this will in no way help with weapon scanners.

Since the "Easy Breakdown" modification from Arsenal allows a weapon to be assembled or disassembled in 3 or 2 complex actions, if you make the threshold high enough that it will take at least 8 complex actions (ish) at minimum, it should work out fine.

Since disassembling and cleaning your weapons is a pretty basic part of gun ownership, having it be a Logic (?) and relevant firearm skill should probably be fine.

Yeah, that sounds fine. I agree that the period should be a Complex Action, not a Combat Turn. Faster reflexes means faster hand action.

"Easy Breakdown" is what your buddy actually wants in this instance, unless the shotgun is already modified to the hilt.

As long as you make it balanced against Powered/Easy Breakdown, yeah.

I actually would suggest using armorer skill instead of the firearms skill. Armorer is the skill "used to create or modify any weapon". Furthermore, I know plenty of people that know how to shoot, but don't have the slightest idea of how to care for a firearm.

Armorers can also disassemble weapons, sure, but I'm more on the side of AngelisStorm's "disassembling and cleaning your weapons is a pretty basic part of gun ownership", or in my case military training. I met some seriously retarded people who could do it really fast, though, so I kept the agility.

Oh, and also, how did I miss Easy Breakdown??? Thanks!

You mean Forrest Gump?

One of the main benefits of the easy breakdown is that it also potentially disguises the individual parts. Though there are no rules in the description despite a basic mention. I guess it's just a "player-devised, GM-approved" situation as to how you would disguise certain parts..

Cleaning and breakdown is a part of gun ownership, but not of gun firing; the latter is what the Combat Active Firearms skills do. I think most owners and soldiers just have a couple ranks in Armorer, perhaps Spec (Cleaning and Breakdown).

You mean like a gold cigarette lighter, a gold cigarette case, a gold cuff link, and a gold pen?

The SA Puzzler in Arsenal p21 specifically breaks down into such mundane items (notice the Armorer + Logic tests):

20 components! I guess 2070 doesn't have golden gun tech.

Holds more than a single bullet, however. And doesn't use custom rounds, either, I bet. Just standard "Light Pistol" rounds.

I really want to know calibres of weapons, but that's the gun nut part of me.

You can guess that the Light pistols are all roughly 9mm (and .40), based on their DV and fluff. But yeah.

In all likelyhood, if it was a knowledge skill, it would be a professional skill (since we're using soldiers as an example). The listed examples in the book are: Architecture, Business, Military, Security Procedures, etc. Comparatively, Knowledge: gun cleaning, doesn't seem to fit the mold.

Active skills generally include the knowledge to use those skills. Cleaning your gun is a basic aspect of gun ownership and use; is there a reason to demand characters purchase such a trivial (knowledge) skill?

Who said anything about a Knowledge skill? Armorer is a Technical Active. Firearms is for shooting people. Nothing wrong with that. Besides, SR isn't a reality simulator; I was just explaining why people in reality know how to take apart their guns.

I believe it uses the disguised equipment rules found in the runners gear part of the book.

Agreed. Ability to fire a weapon accurately (Agility + weapon skill) has nothing what-so-ever to do with the ability to clean it, maintain it, dis or reassemble the weapon (Logic + Armorer). The fact that someone who is good at one tends to be good at another is simply because people who train in one tend to train in the other. It is entirely possible to be amazing at firing a weapon but have no idea how to maintain it, such as someone who goes to a gun range and uses their guns all the time. The opposite is equally true. You could have someone who designs/builds guns but has never actually fired one.

If a GM ever said to me at the end of a firefight, "Now make a Logic + Armorer [3] test to clean your gun; a glitch indicates you have destroyed the weapon," I would stick all my books in my bag (SR4A, Arsenal, Augmentation, Runner's Companion, Unwired, Street Magic, and Seattle 2072 - altogether quite heavy) and bludgeon him to death with it. There is such a thing as too much realism.

Straw man.

Well, that is the logical conclusion of this line of thought: that you must have ranks in Armorer just to perform routine maintenance, which is completely wrongheaded and frankly idiotic.

It is not the logical conclusion that a Threshold 3 test will be required to avoid destroying your weapon.

There *is* no routine maintenance in SR4. Fluff-wise, several of these guns probably wouldn't need it even if it existed in the game, and it doesn't.

This thread is talking about disassembly for the purpose of hiding. It would be an Extended Test, and you'd probably need only a couple hits, *and* glitches would slow you down, not 'destroy' things. Finally, you can default if you didn't think sinking a single rank into a skill that *does* represent a relatively basic level of gun care was reasonable.

Not to quote to death, but I agree. I was in the infantry, and we weren't even supposed to break most weapons down past a certain point. Of course, if concealment is the issue then it's a whole different deal. You can break an M4 into upper/lower receiver to conceal it, any further only complicates things if you're not cleaning it.

Logic + Armorer is really the way to go imo, though I always had trouble with shotguns

I should say, that specialization is probably more like (Small Arms Maintenance) or (AR Maintanence), etc. Depends on your GM, but it's not exactly overpowered.