Hi everyone, I'm new at the forums and FFG's board games as well and I was hoping that the community here can give me a hand here because I am unsure if I am playing Eldritch Horror correctly...

So, I listed both the situation and questions on the bottom respectively and can someone help me and my friends finally put an end to our confusion when playing? Please bear in mind that we are new to the game and I am hoping I will not receive excited responses.

1. When exactly is the mystery card(s) supposed to become active? Do you pick a mystery when you start the game or do mysteries start appearing after following certain conditions? (this is a frequent problem me and my buds are having a issue with because it seems that every time we play the game, we start with a mystery before the action phase and I feel very unsure if this is correct)

2. When are special encounter cards (one with tentacles) for the gods encountered? How do you encounter these cards? (So, we've played Cthulhu recently but it seemed to us that he was the only one we had dealt with special encounter cards "R'lyeh Risen". The other gods, on the other hand, we haven't dealt with these cards and we don't know what these cards are for, except for putting them in the box.)

3. Once an investigator dies, can he/she play a different character? And when that investigator dies, when the other player takes his/her equipment, can the other player use the equipment?

4. Any limit on how many items you can have?

5. When improving skills, can you improve skills indefinitely or is there a limit? (This seemed to be an issue when one of us were using Lily Chen's abilities)

Hello Vitru, welcome to the community.

1) Check out main rulebook P5, Section 9 of setup part H and Page 16 "Mysteries" Also Page 8 of the reference Guide.

2) The special encounter cards for each old one only come into play depending on the "active Mystery" For example if Cthulhu's R'lyeh Risen" Mystery is the active mystery then the instructions on the Mystery will refer to the Special encounter cards with the same artwork on the back and Title on the front.

3) Refer to main rulebook P14 "Defeated Investigators" and "Choosing a new Investigator" also P4 of the Reference Guide.

4) Nope. Try and aquire as many as you can.

5) You can only improve skills twice maximum ( so up to +2). Lily is special in that she can max out her training and get +2 instantly which is a massive time saver, but even she can only get +2 max. Get her to Sydney asap and give her a weapon and she will make short work of most Mythos monstrosities.

Best advice is to read and re-read the rulebook and reference guide and then the FAQ.

And don't be worried about asking, in case. If you're new to FFG games, you'll certainly be:

a) amazed, because they produce some of the most fantastic games around (seriously, when I discovered my first FFG game I was like a kid in a candy shop)

b) a little shocked by the amount of rules and interactions and things to remember and so on

As for your queries (giving you the answers so that you can cross-check later with the rules as pointed out by GrimGuvna)

1. One mystery is put in play during the setup; then, you check for the pass condition of the active mystery at the end of the Mythos phase. Hence, you completely resolve a Mythos card at the end of the turn, and then look at the active mystery. If the mystery is passed, you discard it from play, and you draw a new one, that becomes immediately active (i.e. any "when this mystery enters play" conditions are immediately resolved), unless you passed the number of mysteries required by the AO to win the game (so that you win the game, no need to pull a new mystery in)

3. A player can always play a new character if the previous one is defeated / devoured, unless you're resolving the Final Mystery (as a general rule, investigators defeated / devoured after the AO's awakening are out of the game; there are some cases in which this is not true, but are stated on the back of the AO). As for what to do with defeated / devoured investigators possessions, refer to the rules as Grim said