Absorber

Absorber Aliases: Cyborg Role Absorber Alignment: Town Serial Killer Mafia Role type: Manipulative Investigative Choice: none

An Absorber (or Role Absorber) passively and reflexively copies all active abilities that target it. The Absorber can then use its "absorbed" abilities on subsequent Nights.

Standard version

Whenever an active, non-factional ability is targeted at an Absorber, the Absorber will permanently gain that ability (in addition to any other abilities they might have). The Absorber can then use it on future nights.

Absorbers cannot copy factional abilities like the Mafia's kill, and are not Multitasking by default – they can use only one ability per night, even if they've absorbed multiple abilities.

Variations

Sometimes, players that target Absorbers actually lose their ability while the Absorber gains it.

A popular alteration for Anti-Town Absorbers involves letting them take on the role traits of the players they use their factional kill on, instead of whoever targets them. This is especially popular for Serial Killers.

Some moderators do not allow Absorbers to gain the ability to Roleblock players, even though the absorption is passive. They would also not allow absorption of nonfactional killing abilities (i.e. Vigilante kills).

If an X-Shot role targets an Absorber, it's not clear whether the Absorber gains unlimited use of the absorbed role or just the X-Shot version.

Use & Balance

Absorber is situationally similar to Jack-of-all-trades or Universal Backup. However, the Absorber has to be targeted first in order to become at all powerful. In Normal games, an Absorber is fairly unlikely to make any difference. In Role Madness, though, an Absorber can gain a myriad of powers; in essence, an Absorber is more powerful the greater the number of other power roles in the game. The latter is definitely the "natural habitat" of the role.

An Absorber initially has no active investigative power; however, being self-aware of what powers have been absorbed, it effectively functions as a Self Voyeur in addition to its other abilities. This can sometimes expose a fake-claim, and/or be useful in a Breaking Strategy.

Make sure that the game will not break as a consequence of a powerful role being simultaneously usable by both an Absorber and its original user (for example, if a Doctor protects an Absorber, the two players will then be able to cross-protect for the rest of the game, and a balanced setup likely needs a way to break the combination up). Likewise, make sure that the setup cannot break as a consequence of an Absorber gaining an unstoppable role combination (e.g. if the Absorber gains the abilities to self-protect and kill via any source, the only way to stop them is the elimination).

Play Advice

As Town, an Absorber is much more powerful if it can absorb something self-protective, as it can then safely claim and start organising night actions to make itself more powerful. Unfortunately, there are very few active roles that allow a player to self-protect. Barring that, it's probably best to keep your role secret, otherwise you're likely to get nightkilled; the scum almost certainly have some way to bypass Doctor protection if there's an Absorber in the setup.

If you're of an anti-town alignment, you're unlikely to have much control over what you absorb, but if you do pick up an ability, look for good opportunities to use it. Even if it's completely useless for its intended purpose (e.g. Doctor), you may still be able to confuse, e.g., a Follower with it. Also bear in mind that gaining an ability means that someone has targeted you; if you pick up a Cop shot or similar, you may need to fakeclaim immediately in order to try to deal with the likely incoming guilty on you (but try to pick something that you'd have a reason to claim unprompted, otherwise people will guess what happened).

Sample Role PMs

The standardized Role PM for "Absorber" describes the passive ability as follows:

• As an unmodified passive ability: You will permanently gain the use of non-factional abilities that target you. (edit)

• As a passive ability with a modifier: You will permanently gain the use of the nth non-factional ability that targets you OR non-factional abilities that target you on day n. (edit)

Example (unmodified)

Welcome to game! You are a Town Absorber.

You will permanently gain the use of non-factional abilities that target you.

You have no active abilities.

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.

Example (modified)

Welcome to game! You are a Town 1-shot Absorber.

You will permanently gain the use of the first non-factional ability that targets you.

You have no active abilities.

You win if all threats to the town are eliminated and at least one town-aligned player is alive.

Confirm by replying to this PM with a summary of your role.