DX roll and ST requirements to engage or disengage a safety catch on a gun using TK?

[Plane]

I was just thinking this would be a really sneaky thing to do, either to prevent an enemy from attacking you (they think their gun is ready to shoot) or putting them at risk of accidentally discharging their weapons at inappropriate times.

It seems like there should be a DX roll of some kind, as this could be tricky to do in bad lighting, at a distance, if user or target were moving fast, if suffering shock/pain, if your TK was "Hard to Use" (-3 to -12 to skill) or if you wanted to do it subtly (maybe similar to Deceptive Attack where you take a skill penalty but do it in a fashion that's harder to notice)

I don't know if one level of TK would generate enough force to do this. Do some big guns require a lot of force to flip their safeties that could need extra levels?

Complications could arise depending on where the safety is actually located like if the hand of a wielder might get in the way.

This also brings up what sort of Per check a person would need to make to notice this, as it could be a relatively small amount of movement. Plus maybe what sort of skill check you could make for TK (perhaps similar to picking pockets?) to do this with minimal rustling (movement of the gun overall) that might give kinesthetic feedback that something was up.

It would be a lot easier for someone stationary since you could have one "TK hand" stabilize the gun while the other flipped the switch. That could minimize overall movement so there would only be mostly visual/audio evidence of the gun being tampered with.

HT80 mentions safetying normally takes a Ready unless you have Familiarity in which case you can do it as a free action once per turn (either at start or end) but in either case doesn't mention a DX roll.

In cases like that I usually just assume there's a maxed-out TDM (+10) which is considered to be an automatic success due to effective skill being at least 15 (psi powers: riding a bike) and writers take for granted someone will have at least skill 5 in it?

For low-DX guys who are ham-fisted, in bad lighting, suffering shock, being grappled, etc it seems good to actually have some base skill in this (maybe a technique based on the guns skill?) which you'd roll against in either case (free action or ready)

Unfamiliarity usually gives -2 to skill so if someone familiar with a gun wanted to spend extra time (a ready as usual) it would seem fair to give them a +2 to skill, and maybe more (+2 or +4) if you wanted to let them reduce defenses like Committed/All-Out Attacks?

Plus if we allowed something like a "Telegraphic Safetying" that could be grounds for another +4 basic bonus, with the downside that if it were possible to "parry" it in some way (maybe someone is grappling your hand or the gun) that it would be easier to.

[CeeDub]

Pretty sure that one level of TK is plenty for that, ST-wise. I believe it is even explicitly mentioned as a possibility in one source book.

[Anaraxes]

Even out of combat, TK actions that are more complicated or precise than your basic "lift that rock" or "drag that chair over here" call for a DX (or TK skill, if your using such) roll. In combat, I'd just treat it as an attempt to grapple the safety switch, with range and SM penalties. (You can't teke what you can't see precisely.) "Hit" the switch, and you can hit the switch, so to speak.

I'd also apply the familiarity penalty if the teke wasn't familiar with that particular model of firearm. There's usually a safety somewhere, but they're not always in exactly the same spot or moved exactly the same way (lever up down, click across, depress, etc). Those little differences are just what the familiarity penalty is for. Much harder if the teke has no Guns skills at all. There's often several little levers and other protruding bits, and having just the general knowledge that "guns have safeties" isn't terribly useful when you're trying to figure out which little bit on the gun that guy ten yards over there and oh my god he's shooting at me. Say another -4 in that case.

(In general, you need to know what you're doing with TK with some other skill. TK doesn't let you pick a lock just because you can move the parts; it just gives a bonus to Lockpicking. It doesn't give you knowledge or skills you don't otherwise possess.)

[dcarson]

Of course moving any control is liable to do something useful. Ejecting the magazine instead of putting the safety on still works.

[CeeDub]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Of course moving any control is liable to do something useful. Ejecting the magazine instead of putting the safety on still works.

That's of limited use if there is a round already chambered. On the other hand, when the mag unexpectedly falls out of your gun, you might forget about shooting and reflexively try to figure out what's wrong with your gun.