Hi everyone, I've played arkham horror a handful of times before buying it, and have picked up my own board a week or so ago. I've got a few things that I think I'm doing right, but if any of you fine experts would like to confirm or correct that I'd really appreciate it. I've already filtered through the first 70 pages of the forums here trying to find as many answers as I can on my own, like a proper investigator, but there's a few things that aren't exactly covered anywhere

so here goes... each question/situation will be it's own number and the bold will be the tl;dr version for those who wanna help an FNG out but don't want to read two pages of information they're already familiar with

1. If you go into OW, when you come back (movement phase), you are allowed to ignore the monsters on your tile until your arkham encounter phase at which point you are allowed to make an attempt to close/seal. After sealing or closing a gate when do you fight monsters on your location? The reason I ask is that if it's set to trigger on movement phase, then if an OW encounter or mythos card send you back to arkham before your movement phase, do you have to fight monsters on your movement phase before attempting to close or seal the gate during your subsequent arkham encounter phase?
2. Certain spells require hands to use, and last until the end of the combat turn (wither, etc) however I'm unclear, how long is a "combat turn" exactly? 1 attack exchange, 1 monster, or all combat for one turn (i.e. multiple monsters on the same location)?
3. If a combat check is failed, must you try fighting against the same monster again or does combat end?
4. If a sneak check is failed, after taking the combat damage from the monster are you drawn into combat with it, dropped from combat but left on the tile, or allowed to continue movement albeit light a pound of flesh?
5. I've noticed with my group monsters tend to build up in the initial phases of the game as everyone's scrambling for clues and to exchange items while allowing the monsters from gates to run rampant. Once a surge happens we get flooded, and a few monsters land in the outskirts. Once that happens we start to rally and stem the tide, but the outskirts remain half full (or half empty depending on what side you're on) My question is, do monsters from the outskirts ever move into the city itself, or are they stuck there until the outskirts overflow?
6. Do the Mi-go and Warlock monsters return to the cup or are they removed from the game upon defeat? The wording on it is "box" making me think that it's removed entirely from the game, however it also says that it's "returned" which implys that it's sent back to where it originated, which means the cup... but everything originally originates from the box technically, so I'm not particularly sure either.
7. The terror track increases when monsters in the outskirts reach a certain point. To use an extreme case for the sake of clarity, in an 8 player game if the board has the full 11 and there's a monster surge, how much would the terror track increase? Would it go up 1 level since 8 monsters simultaneously appear in the outskirts, blowing the limit of zero and forcing it to tick up, or would it increase 8 levels since each monster, placed individually in sequence, would break the limit repeatedly?
8. Sanity and health I feel are infinite, however money and clue tokens I'm not entirely sure about. What resources are finite and which are infinite? I'd imagine that technically there's no limit on how much money could potentially flow into arkham, however by that logic there's technically no limit on how much information could be available in Arkham since there's constantly portals to other worlds opening up all the time.
9. Kate has an ability which stops monsters or gate from appearing on her location so during the mythos phase if a card gets pulled that would open a portal on top of her it doesn't work, however if Kate is on top of a gate which is the source of the monster surge, does it still occur or does her ability counter it? If she's not on the source gate, I assume that her gate's share of the surging monsters are negated, but when she is on the gate that is the source of the surge I'm not sure. If no monsters appear from her gate and no other gate can have more monsters than the source gate, does that mean there's no monster surge at all, or does it mean that the number of monsters to appear on each gate are determined then placed with the monsters on the source gate are just never placed thanks to Kate?
10. While on the subject of Kate, if an Arkham Encounter card would cause a monster to appear, or for a gate and monster to appear on top of Kate, does her ability protect her or does her ability only affect mythos cards?
11. On mythos cards that cause monster to appear, such as "Lodge Member Held for Questioning" do the monsters appear in the lodge and move to the street? Or do they appear directly in the street? Also since she's come up, Kate's ability would prevent these monsters from appearing even if they do appear in the street, or does her ability only work in "locations" in the strictest sense of the word?
12. When using spells in combat, when do you cast them? Do you pre-cast all spells before beginning combat, or can you cast spells for use in the next fight in between monsters? Must you assign a spell to your hand and commit to using it in a fight before confirming that it's inactivated?
13. When encounter cards say that "a monster appears" in a 5+ player game, do 2 monsters appear or just one? Also if a card says "a gate and monster appear" same question.
14. If Shub-Niggurath is the AO for the game, since all monsters have their toughness increased by one, which is an ability that cannot be turned off or circumvented to my knowledge, are monster trophies also all worth one extra blood drop? If the answer to that is yes, then when mythos cards such as "The Chill of the Grave" or "Things of Darkness" are in play, do they increase the value of trophies as well as monsters in play?
15. If you're using the "Patrol Wagon" to move around, do you "teleport" or do you have infinite movement points? If you want to move from point A to point B but there are monsters in the way do you have to fight them to get where you're going or do you drive past/around them to get to your destinations? If you do have to fight, do you end your movement in that location or do you still end up at your destination thanks to the special properties of the wagon?

I know that's a bit more than twelve, but let's just call it a gamer's dozen? =)

sorry for the deluge of questions right off the bat, but the sooner I get the minor tweaks to rules done the quicker and smoother the games will run

I'm not on expert, but lets see if I can field some of these.

1: yes, if an encounter sends you back to Arkham early, you will have to evade or fight any monsters on that location in the movement phase, then close/seal in the Arkham encounters phase.

2: As I understand this one, the spells last through combat rounds with the same monster as long as you devote hands to them, unless they specifically give a bonus for one combat check. I'm not sure any spells are worded like that, but some items are.

3: With a few exceptions you fight until the monster is dead, or until it knocks you unconscious. So yes, it continues after you fail a combat check. You take whatever stamina damage the monster dishes out, then you get to make a new combat check. Some monsters, such as Nightgaunts, this wont happen with, since if you fail a combat check with a Nightgaunt it dumps you through a gate.

4: After a evade check is failed you enter combat with the monster, and have to either kill it or escape it. Either way, your movement is over.

5: They're stuck there. They are returned to the cup if a gate with a matching dimensional symbol is closed, and there are a few other things (certain mythos cards, etc) that will empty the outskirts.

6: They're removed from the game.

7: I've never played a game with 8 players like that, but I believe the terror level would shoot up 8 spots. ick

8: I think this question is something people are still looking for clarification on. I've never yet run out of either money or clue tokens, for what it's worth.

9: Uhm. Good question, no idea!

10: Monsters and gates from encounters are still blocked by Kate

11: They appear in the street. As for Kate I don't think the use of the word "location" in her ability is meant to define only "locations" in the game sense and so it would still block monsters appearing in the street if she was there. I could be wrong though.

12: I believe the order here would be horror check, cast combat spells as needed, then combat check. I think if you fail to cast the spell the hand may still be used up for that combat check. Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, please.

13: For encounters, just one monster appears. For gate and monster encounters I believe two would appear.

14: yes and yes.

15: I don't think of it as teleporting, but you don't have to deal with any monsters between your starting point and your destination.

Hope that helps! Hope I'm right on all those too.

magnumopera said:

Surge still occurs. You allocate monsters normally, but any that would appear at Kate's location don't appear, others normally.

8. What do you mean by: "Sanity and health I feel are infinite"?
Because an Investigator can only have as mush as its maximum stamina and/or sanity.
This maximum can be modified by encounters or GOO's

15. The patrol car doesn't give you infinit movement points, it just let's you go to any location without encountering monsters along the way.
Your movement points is still the number on your movement skill.
If you decide to fight a monster (along the way or at the destination) remember your movement always ends when you fight a monster!

Joseph has answered most of these, but I want to clarify on a few of his answers.

1: The reason you don't get a free evade if an encounter sends you back is that a new turn will have begun before you get a chance to close the gate. Remember that you only get the "freebie" against monsters on the turn that you come back from the OW.

2: Joseph has it right. A good example of a one-time-use kill spell is Bind Monster, though it doesn't specifically add to combat checks.

3: Joe has it right, but I should include: unless the monster has the Ambush ability, you may always choose to flee the battle instead of making any combat check, even your first. The penalty for failing to flee is the same as failing a combat check.

4: Combat always ends movement, whether it was accidental or intentional.

6: Note that "return to the box" means "remove from the game."

7: Monsters are placed into the outskirts one by one, so yes, that's an 8-terror tick. Serves you right for having 8 investigators but nobody available to kill any monsters!

8: No one knows, but this is how I play: clues used as clues are limited to what you have, but any other token is unlimited. A rumor or personal story that tracks progress with clues isn't limited to the available clue tokens, because that doesn't make sense, and can be exploitable. But if all clue tokens are being used, I won't give any more to the investigators.

9: Kate completely prevents the surge if she's on the surging gate. She also prevents elder signs from being removed from a Gate Burst. But if she's on a gate that isn't the cause of the surge, the gate still receives its share of monsters, but then they're negated by her. This does not apply to the "no gate can receive more monsters than the surging gate" rule, because this is an impossible situation without her being on the surging gate, in which she'd prevent the surge anyway.

10: In addition, Kate cancels all "monster appears" encounters in the Other World.

11: The monsters are simply placed in the street. And since they're placed by the Mythos text, they're not subject to move that turn (monster movement occurs first). As for the Kate thing, I'm not actually sure if she blocks them or not. "Location" is just a general term in this case.

12: If I remember correctly, you can cast your combat spells before making the horror check, to help determine whether or not you wish to flee on your first combat round (if, say, the spell fails).

15: You still have to deal with monster on your starting or ending space, but not between. It is essentially "teleporting" though: you don't have to pay to move between city boards.

Tibs said:

Is this really the case? Just to throw two scenarios out there.

Scenario #1:

Monster surge at Witch House. Let's say 5 open gates total. Kate at WH. No gate will get a monster because none can appear at Kate's location?

Scenario #2:

Monster surge at Witch House, Arkham at monster limit. Same 5 gates open, one at Witch House, 2 in Dunwich and 2 in Innsmouth. Again, no gate will get a monster, since no monster can be placed on the surging gate because town at monster limit?

So monster surge is negated completely in both cases? If not, where's the difference?

To me, both scenarios would see 1 monster allocated to each gate, then in #1 Kate blocks it from appearing at her location, but the other 4 still appear (say the same gates as in #2). In #2, the WH monster goes to Outskirts, other 4 still get their monster.

The upcoming FAQ actually states that that's the case. But it's not a matter of numbers of monsters...

Scenario #1:
If Kate is at the surging gate, then she cancels the gate's attempt to open (and the ensuing monster surge) as well. It's not a matter of the gate having fewer monsters than any other, it's that the entire surge is prevented in the first place; it's as though the Mythos card stops trying to open a gate at the Witch House because Kate is there. And if there's no gate opening on a gate, there's no surge.

Scenario #2:
Your presumption for why the surge would be canceled was wrong for Scenario 1, so the logical conclusion on scenario 2 is completely different, but to be more clear: gates in Arkham would still have monsters allocated to them. It just happens that all these monsters have to go to the Outskirts instead; it doesn't mean that those gates "received 0 monsters."

Hope that was clear.

thanks for all the replies, I know these are odd questions but the guys I play with seem to go out of their way to make those 1 in a million questions come up.

on top of that if they think there's a situation no one knows how to deal with they'll make it happen.

they're more interested in messing with me than winning

all the answers and discussion are greatly appreciated, thanks everyone

Tibs said:

Don't like it TBH. In both scenarios, you allocate monsters to gates, but in each case, no monsters can appear/are placed at Witch House. Does boost Kate a bit, but seems counter-intuitive IMO.

So Kate blocking a monster surge will add a DOR token then? Even though normal monster surge doesn't add a DOR.

oh nephilim with #8 what I mean in the case of sanity and stamina is that in an extreme situation (say 8 player game, or even to really push an extreme, with all boards thanks to the -1 investigator per extra expansion board rule you could theoretically play 11 investigators using the gate and monster limits of an 8 player game)

if say you use that idea and have 11 people who really want to play arkham horror (and yeah, this really could happen thanks to a large pool of local friends who are all gamers), you whip out all the boards for a massive game.

now lets say that somehow everyone at the table pulls a random investigator and happens to pull a high stam or high sanity character. If each player has 6 or 7 sanity, and lets say half the table manages to find ways to raise their max here and there of either one, if you reach a point where every single stamina or sanity token is used on a players character and someone gains one with none left in the box... do you use something else as a token, or are they just unable to get their stamina or sanity back since there's (for lack of a better term) only so much health, physical or mental, to go around?

an 11 player game is probably nuts, especially with 4 boards to cover as well, and I doubt that anyone's ever played a game that large, but if it was done I could see money and clue tokens being in short supply, maybe even stamina or sanity tokens at that point

Basically if all clues are legally assigned to players or locations (none being used as a token or placeholder) what happens if a person gains one clue token?

if all money is held by players (afaik money isn't ever used as a placeholder or token, nor placed on the board) and someone gains money, what happens?

if all sanity or stamina tokens are legally assigned to players with none being used as placeholders or tokens, then what happens when someone gains a point of health or sanity?

I know that these aren't the kinds of situations that will come up often but I have at least 14 players who, while they don't all play regularly and don't all play together, could. If it ever happens and this comes up I'd feel more comfortable having an answer just in case ><

Right now all I have is the main board and a smallbox expansion so as it stands I can't even pull out every expansion board to make an 11 player game theoretically functional but I'm the kinda guy who likes to know what the bridge is like well before I have to cross it

Dam said:

But I don't think you allocate monsters in the scenario where Kate is on the surging gate. Just, the surge cancels. As far as the DOR track is concerned, I don't think it would go up, because we were essentially dealing with a monster surge, not a new gate. I know I said that the surge was caused by a gate attempting to open, but if a gate-on-gate won't cause a DOR then neither should canceling a gate-on-gate.

sorry, trying to follow along but what's a DOR?

I'm assuming it's somehow an abbreviation for Doom Token, but there's no R anywhere in that so I'm probably wrong...

I figure regardless of Kate surges never cause a doom token to appear

in any case, unless I'm wrong, a surge is caused by a gate opening on a location where a gate is already present... if that's true then kate sitting on top of a gate that's open (most likely with an explored token) would keep the second gate from opening

in my mind the way a surge happens is gate 2 tries to open but gate 1 is already there, so a surge happens. I'd imagine that kate being there with gate 1 would mean that gate 2 never tries to open therefore no surge?

if she's on a different gate then you resolve the surge as normal but disregard placing the allocated monsters on the gate she's occupying?

DOR is "Deep One Rising" track from the Innsmouth board. When it gets its 6th token, all hell breaks loose. One of the ways that it gains a token is when a gate is prevented from opening by an elder sign or by Kate. Dam was asking if a DOR token would be added if she prevented a surge on her location. I really doubt it.

I'm not fully familiar with the rule so take this with a grain of salt, but by that rule I'd think that it would in fact add a token

my logic on this is that the surge is prevented by the gate opening being prevented, regardless of the end result of what would happen had the gate opened (in this case had it opened it still wouldn't have opened but would have rather caused a surge)

technically I guess it'd come down to wording

if it's caused by the prevention of a gate being opened then no DOR, since the gate was not going to open. If it's caused by the prevention of a gate opening then it would add one since the gate was opening, even if it would not have been able to complete that action.

personally however I figure that since a gate would not have opened in that location with or without kate or an elder sign etc her presence is irrelevant in that case.

Until now, I've always played as as Magnusopera suggested. I mean, I thought the main point is that Kate blocks the opening of gates on her location. Whether this new opening produces a monster surge or a new gate, depends on where Kate is (if on an already open gate or not), but everything is related to the main action, "a new gate opens at". So, if Kate stops it, I think a DOR token should be added.

I have a question related to the patrol wagon too: considering that I can travel from anywhere to everywhere (with the usual restriction, Kingsport head, etc, but basically I don't have to care any longer of the effective distance between locations or streets where I'd ike to go), can I reach my mates on the board for exchanging items and then reach the final destination safely (of course, supposing that the ones I have to reach anot sharing their location with monsters)? Technically, it doesn't seem to me that is against the rules, but I think could be a little unbalancing

that's the reason I was asking julia

my thinking is that if you have infinite movement, then yeah, you can spray paint the side of the wagon and pretend you're the UPS driver for the rest of the game. However if you just appear at your destination (mechanically teleporting although thematically you would be "taking a side-street") then you just show up where you want to be somehow.

if you just show up where you want to be then you couldn't play santa to all the boys and girls but you also would be able to avoid monsters freely.

if you have infinite movement then say, getting from the woods to independence square when there's monsters sitting in the merchant district and french hill streets would be impossible. You'd have to drive into one or the other to get through, but if you had a clear pathway you could drive all over town and pay out like a pinata.

if you just show up where you want to be "somehow" then you can't run a commodities exchange out of the trunk but you also never have to deal with monster-traffic

it's one of those odd duck questions that all us odd ducks want to figure out ><

I would guess a DOR token wouldn't be added. I'm not sure though. Kate's card is written in a way that might make it sound like a DOR token would be added, however that was long long ago, and since then there's sort of been a distinction between gate surges and gate openings.

Julia said:

No. You're trying to use it thematically, not technically.

http://www.arkhamhorrorwiki.com/Patrol_Wagon

It makes a direct move from point A to point B, it doesn't travel through the streets. You also can't read books while you're in the back seat of the car :')

The proto-FAQ makes a specific ruling about how your wagon takes you through monster blockades of your path between point A and B (the implications of this being that Patrol Wagon does not give you infinite movement, it gives you teleportation— in terms of game play).

::Shrug:: it's possible that someone can give a more direct ruling. But I'm 99% confident on this issue. I would be absolutely shocked if the Patrol Wagon was ruled to allow all players to trade every turn.

Avi_dreader said:

I take your point Avi, since the misuse of the wagon could be too unbalancing. But... yep, it's a little odd. In my opinion, at last. I'd have felt more confortable with a (house) rule like "every time you trade an item with another investigator during your movement wth the Patrol wagon, roll a die. On a 1, return the wagon to the box". It should suggest you not to go santaclausing every round, but giving you at least the possibility to trade when necessary. In the other way, it seems that rules for avoiding a misuse of the wagon hinders its normal use.

This is not to say you're wrong (if there's a thing Arkham told me in the last months, is that if one of the Forum-AOnes says something, 99.9% of the times they are right, in the other 0.1% the others are wrong ), but just to say that I don't feel at ease with the implication of this rule.

And thanx for the answer!

Julia said:

Hey, if you really hate the rule, just house rule against it ;') just don't use your house rule in future leagues, that's all.

Avi_dreader said:

I try to play the more coherent to the rules / official versions as possible ;-) so I'll play the way you said

Future leagues? This would be great, but I'll be happy even if last one's results will be published!

We allways play it as it is intended to teleport you to a location and then end your movement.
The card states: "If you are in Arkham, you may move to any street area or location in Arkham instead of your normal movement."
Especially the: "instead of your normal movement" lead us to say you don't do other movement things in that turn and thus no trading or reading tomes. But that is how we see it and it works for us

Our question was: what if you want to read a tome ot trade? Can you still use you normal movement points (forfeiting the use of the Patrol Wagon that round)?
In adition if you don't use the Patrol Wagon and 'walk' to a location with a monster, and do a combat, do you still roll the die for your Patrol Wagon?
Same if you decide to 'walk' through a portal, do you still roll the die for your Patrol Wagon when you come out of the Other World?

We decided yes, because the roll of the die is to check if someone didn't sneak off with it when you decided not to use it

Julia said:

::Laughter:: there's nothing stopping an enterprising player from designing and assembling one. It'd be a fun thing to do in the future (but no, I'm not going to start it).