I would like clarification on certain checks that are made during the game and the modifications involved with them.

If a character had a and item that gave you +2 to combat checks and had a 2 fight (2+2=4) and was facing a monster that had a -3 modifier would that investigator roll 1 dice or 2 dice? Reason I ask is because I am not sure if it just negates the fight value or if it subtracts from the entire amount of 4? That is to say it subtracts from the total number of dice.

This conflict I am having with it drived in a dispute with a friend that revolved around the item that gives an investigator +2 to horror checks, so that when he made a will check and had a will of 2 and had to beat a -4 horror check, or something to that effect. He was wondering if his will was just subtracted but the item was not effected so the -4 does not carry over due to the properties of the item? I am confused on how this would go.

Thanks for the time.

Negatives are subtracted from the total so in your first example you would roll 1 dice. It should be noted though that dice from clue tokens are added after the negatives are applied so if you have a 2 fight and am fighting a monster with a -4 combat modifier and you spend a clue token you still roll one dice.

Veet said:

Also, please note, that the negative modifiers can never take you below 0- meaning, you'll never have a negative number for a skill check. Which is why in Veet's example, one clue token will give you one dice.