If you choose one that you have a modifier for, ie fight and I have a knife, do I add the weapon modifier to my fight number?

If so, what is the rational for this? I'm not actually fighting the gate.

You get anything that adds to Fight, but not Combat checks.

I guess you could say that Fight is an investigator's measure of physical prowess. Combat checks are a special case of Fight checks that are only made in combat against monsters and the Ancient One. Your current fight value is added to any combat checks. The latter are further supplemented by equipped weapons and equipped/successfully cast combat spells.

Weapons and spells however don't add to your fight checks in encounters and those made in an attempt to close gates, since those checks are not combat checks.

The Old Man said:

Only if the knife grants a FIGHT bonus, and not a COMBAT bonus. As others have mentioned already, Combat Checks are a subset of Fight checks. Combat bonuses are applied to Combat checks, but not to Fight checks. Fight bonuses are applied to both.

I'm not sure off the top of my head if any weapons provide a Fight bonus, or if they all provide Combat bonuses.

As for the rationale, weapon or no weapon, the fact that you're making a "Fight" check implies that you're involved in some sort of physical struggle to close the gate. How does this make any sense? Well that depends on how the gate was opened in the first place. Obviously the idea of the investigator jumping on the gate and beating it down is silly - doing that would only logically send him back through to the other world. But maybe this particular gate was opened when some cultist read aloud from a mystic book, and destroying the book will close the gate. Maybe there's a magic gemstone that needs to be shattered. Maybe the gate was created by some mad scientist and there's actually a technological superstructure surrounding the gate itself, knock down a few pylons, rip out a few power cords and bye bye gatesville.

How gates are created or maintained is never defined. One assumes there any number of ways they might be opened and subsequently closed. The first image that pops into one's mind is of some kind of spell or other intangible force opening a hole in reality, but that's not necessarily the only way. Most of the Mythos is focused on magic and ancient godlike beings, but there was a healthy smattering of technology, too. Mi-Go brain cases spring to mind. You can imagine whatever fluff you like to explain why your investigator is able to punch the gate closed - there are lots of possible options.

Thank you for your responses. Is there anything that can add to the Lore check for closing gates?

Other than the obvious Skills and Allies, there isn't much to bolster your Lore checks. In fact, this seems to go for all checks.

There is a spell in Dark Pharaoh that gives you a Lore bonus for a phase. But, clearly, you need that expansion.

One of the Ally's, I can't think of his name right now, will hook you up with a Lore bonus. I found him in the Historical Society while avoiding a Shoggoth.

electronicham said:

Professor Armitage. But there are some more helping you with Lore boosts, even if they are all from the expansion sets

The "Voice of Ra" spell will give you +1 to all skill checks for a turn, assuming you own it and can successfully cast it of course!