Man,

I thought I was good to go on AH, but my friends and I had some questions on an opening move(some of these questions mabey foolish so bear with me).

The first thing you do is draw a Mythos card and we got "Sheldon gang Turns to Police for Aid". And it released 2 monsters into the uptown streets.

On the 1st gate(before players move),

1)Can there be gate monster movement? I am almost postive that the answer is yes but wanted to be sure.

1a)In addition, for the 2 monsters that got put into the streets(due to the Mythos cards), do they move as well? This one (to me) is tricky. I thought I read that if there are no investigaters at that location or if the investigator evades or beats them in combat then they are returned to the cup? What made it more confusing to me is one of the monsters were flying. Obviously, I had no investigators on the street so it would then go into The Sky? But I know that would conflict with putting the 2 monsters back into the cup?

1b) If they are returned to the cup, then what phase does that take place?

1c) Let's pretend it was not an opening move but sometime during the game. Do those 2 monsters count towards the maximum allowed on the board or in the outer limits?

2) For player movement, Can I move 1 player into a spot and have him defeat a monster and then move another player through that spot without making any evade or fight checks checks? or is all movement considered similtaneous?

3) My friend got a Find gate spell. I understand it can return you to Arkham from the Outer World, I would assume that means with an explored token?

4)Lastly, another spell question. "Mists of Releh". I mabey reading this wrong. It says the casting modifier is the monsters awareness to evade. To evade a monster I do a Sneak check minus the monsters awareness. But if I cast this spell then I get to do a Will check instead of a Sneak check minus the monsters awareness?

Thanks to everyone for helping me out. I am probably missing some of this stuff in the Faqs/Rulebook.

1) A mythos card does these things in order:

1. Open gate and spawn monster(s)
2. Place new clue token
3. Move monsters
4. Activate Mythos text

In the case of your opening card, the monster spawned out of the open gate can move, but since the "Sheldon" monsters were spawned by the card's text, this turn's monster movement has already occurred so they won't move.

These particular monsters are all "stay on the board" monsters. So if any of them exceeded the monster limit, they'd go to the Outskirts. The only ones you have to fight immediately and that return to the cup if you don't kill them are town or gate encounters that say "A monster appears!"

***Also worth noting, because it will inevitably come up: if you have a rumor in play, and your Mythos card for the turn is also a rumor, you still do everything on the card in order, except instead of "activating mythos text," you discard the card. Likewise, if you draw an Environment card and you already have one in play, you do not replace the in-play environment card until you reach the "activate mythos text" stage. So if you have "Icy Conditions" in play, and draw "Sunny and Clear," any monsters moved by the movement symbols on the Sunny and Clear mythos card will still be affected by Icy Conditions.

2) Movement isn't really simultaneous: it starts with whoever is First Player and proceeds clockwise. So investigator A could beat all the monsters in a spot, leaving investigator B free to move through that spot uninhibited.

3) Find Gate is ONLY meant to be cast when you're supposed to move from the first Other World space to the second. Therefore, if you begin the movement phase delayed, you cannot cast it. I know you didn't ask that, but it needed to be said. And yes, you do get an explored token because you did "return to Arkham."

4) Essentially, the easiest way to explain Mists is to say that it allows you to make an Evade check with your Lore stat instead of your Sneak stat. This can be helpful in case you have to move pretty far during a turn but have to evade a monster if both your Speed and Lore are sufficiently high. Note that if you fail to cast Mists, you may attempt a normal Evade check before suffering any failure penalties.

Feel free to post more questions, and enjoy Arkham Horror!

More questions.

Unique-Flute of the Outer Gods. Let's say I use it with 3 monsters in one location. It says I have to pass a combat check. Which monster do I take the modifier from?

Spell-Flesh Ward. Can this be used for an encounter card? Such as make a Speed check or suffer 2 Stamina. If I fail my Speed check can I attempt to cast the spell to prevent the stamina loss? or would that be combat only?

If you enter an area with 2 monsters, can you fight one then choose to Evade the other?

Flute: you do not take a modifier, as you apply its effect before making any combat check! However, since horror checks occur before combat checks, this means that you have to make one horror check first. Choose a monster, make the horror check, then use the Flute.

Flesh Ward may be used any time to cancel one loss of stamina. It can be from a monster, an encounter, or some other odd effect (Dark Pharaoh's Blood Boiling or Ithaqua's Icy Winds, for example).

Tibs said:

Wasn't this changed by the new FAQ? I remember Avi saying something about "we don't need to do the horror check anymore" in an old thread...

Yep, found the source! It's the thread regarding the new FAQ arriving:

Interesting note: Flute of the Outer Gods does not require a horror check now. You can just use it. Cool :')

Julia said:

Q: How exactly does Flute of the Outer
Gods (Unique Item) work? Must you first
make an Evade or Horror check or are those
considered “Combat” checks as well?

A: You do not need to perform an Evade check or a
Horror check.

Avi_dreader said:

Who flippin' decided that??? So now we can just scamper up to the Dunwich Horror and not even draw a card???

SHENANIGANS!!!

I think that was one of those "hasty" decisions. Combat checks are only made after Horror checks are made, and since this is a base-game item, it was probably worded carefully. If you weren't meant to make a Horror check, then it should mention a Combat check in its text anywhere.

But... I will play it that way until the FAQ train starts up again.

Tibs said:

HOGWASH! I will NOT. I will play it as the card is written, because I never thought that card was ambiguous IN THE SLIGHTEST.

What about Wrack? Can I cast that before making a Horror Check? Both the Black Man and the Bloated Woman say "Before a Horror Check"; why doesn't the Flute say that?

Exactly how long before a Combat Check is "BEFORE a Combat Check"? Because every other example of "before an X Check" is RIGHT BEFORE THE CHECK. As in NANOSECONDS before. Dice-already-in-your-HAND before.

This game has enough problems with flighty language and compatibility barricades without trying to FIX STUFF THAT ISN'T BROKEN.

jgt7771 said:

Holy crap, dude. Chill out. You're gonna bust a vein. Breathe in...breathe out...calm...

jgt7771 said:

::Laughter:: so true. So true. I need to go pick up Lurker. Later!

Hopefully, this will be the last of the questions for awhile (can't promise though)

If I have monsters in the outskirts, and I kill enough monsters on the board to have the outskirt monsters come back into Arkham.

1)Where do I put them?

2) If one was a gate monster, would I put it back onto that gate? If a gate opened in the Woods and I am past the monster limit for the board, it would go to the outskirts. I kill some board monsters, would I put that one monster back onto the Woods gate?

3) Can you have more than one retainer per character?

4) Just so I understand the Flute of the Gods correctly. When I do the combat check roll, am I including weapon modifiers? I would think no. Flutes are a 2 handed item to be able to play. I can't imagine having an axe modifier in one hand and trying to play the flute with the other hand. But you never know.

Jason556 said:

1) Monsters don't usually come back from the outskirts, even if you wipe out all the monsters in arkham.

3) No, if you get a retainer (or blessing, etc) when you already have one you keep the one you have and, I believe, don't need to roll a dice for discarding it on the next turn. Someone confirm or deny on that one?

4) The flute confuses the heck out of me. Someone else want to take this one?

Joseph_Lavode said:

3) Correct.

4) You don't need to make a combat check with the flute. Instead of making the check, you automatically defeat the monster, and any others that happen to be in the same place. (Exception: doesn't work on the Terrible Experiment rumour, though you can probably destroy one monster with it if you're desperate.)

Joseph_Lavode said:

3) Specifically, the new copy of the Blessing/Retainer/Curse replaces the old one, which is why you don't roll for it the first turn you have it. If you were playing with Nodens and you had a blessing, and then obtained another blessing, you would draw a new Nodens card (and probably would discard the previous one).

4) The Flute of the Outer Gods is not a weapon, and you are NOT making a combat check. You use it to automatically win a combat and then also kill all the other monsters on your space. Weapons and modifiers are therefore not relevant at all.

Beaten to the punch, and had way more quotes than I wanted. So I'll discuss the horror check with the flute. When I originally got the game and before I read up on the flute, I didn't think a horror check was made either. I just thought you walked into a street/location, and used it to destroy whatever was there. Thematically, you're playing the flute loud enough for the area to hear, so you didn't have to be in direct combat. Just like you can move to a spot and read a tome before engaging any monsters if you wish. So it's not like you had to enter combat immediately upon entering a spot with monsters.

But then I read about other cards/effects that take place "before" a check, and reading that you had to make a horror check before using the flute made sense, due to its wording. So I am kind of on the fence with both ways, and wish once again, they had worded it better to know what they really intended.

And cim, you can't use it on any Terrible Experiment monsters at all, not even one. None of the monsters are "on your space." You could technically initiate combat against a TE monster, use the Flute, and lose the 3 sanity and 3 stamina, but no monsters would be defeated.

cim said:

cim said:

Hmmm. I don't have the card in front of me, but I thought it said (something along these lines) lose 3 sanity and 3 stamina and pass a combat check? Again, I mabey wrong. I was thinking of just using my investigaters base fight to roll the dice to get a success.

Whoops, someone just answered my question.

Thank you.

Tibs said:

You don't say? I always assumed that the card was meant to be read like a comic book; top to bottom, and left to right, making our Mythos card order look something like this:

1. Activate Mythos text
2. Place new clew token
3. Open gate and spawn monster(s)
4. Monster movement

If that's the way it's supposed to be done though, then that's the way that we'll do it from now on.

Yeah, that's the order. It's in the rulebook, but you're right—it's not intuitive. But I guess laying out the cards so that the steps are read in the proper order would look ugly. Or maybe the order of the Mythos steps was changed late in development.