It seems the more I play Eldritch Horror, the more I struggle to find the correct, or intended, way to play the game. Recently, I've come across the problem of defining what a Combat Encounter is:
a one round of combat against each monster in your space?
or
each of the monsters you face on the same round, that is, if you have multiple monsters on your space, you have multiple combat encounters?
I used to side with the first opinion, but as someone pointed out, at boadgamegeek.com, :
I think I found the valid citation for this.
Rulebook, page 9, first column, 'Combat Encounters' section: "If an investigator is on a space containing one or more Monsters, he must resolve a combat encounter against each Monster on that space, once at a time, in the order of his choice. . . . After an investigator resolves all Combat Encounters , if there are no Monsters in his space, he may resolve another encounter ."
While the first part is ambiguous (is the group of monsters a combat encounter or is each one a combat encounter?), the highlighted section is clearly plural and thus indicates that multiple monsters are not a single combat encounter.
If you look at the reference manual, page 3, 'Combat Encounters' you will also see it states "An investigator resolves a combat encounter by doing the following steps. . ." an the steps go through fighting a single monster. At no point in the steps detailed does it state that you then fight the next monster - and thus it is implied that a battle with a single monster is a complete combat encounter.
So, yup, if you have Kerosine and a Carbine Rifle only and have to face 3 tough monsters, you are going to run out of weapons and ammo by the 3rd combat encounter.
https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1083319/single-use-item-good-against-all-monsters-combat-e