Just played Arkham for the first time and getting to grips with it. One rule question though....

Some of the encounter cards ask you to perform a fight check, but not necessarily in a combat situation. For example I was in another world and had to do a fight check to stop being delayed in the other world location by a wall closing on me. If it's not a combat against a monster, but it is still a fight check, does that mean you can't use your items? (guns, knives etc?) Should I take it as read that you can only use these items against an actual monster? Or does fight check mean you can use anything in your arsenal of weapons to boost your dice? I couldn't decide as I suppose it would be feasible to use the weapons if you're fighting against a wall closing in on you. Is there some guidance on this that I've not read?

Combat check is the check you making during the combat with monster. Your Fight + your combat bonuses from weapons you devote.

Fight check is check which only involves your Fight skill, without any combat bonuses. Though some stuff gives you bonus Fight (example: Sledgehammer), which you can use in such encounters as you described.

thanks so much - wow - what a quick response. what a great forum! Looking forward to trying my second game and maybe actually finishing one.

MNT has it right. Combat checks are a subset of Fight checks, so something that adds to Combat doesn't add to regular Fight.

Likewise:
Horror is a subset of Will,
Evade is a subset of Sneak
Spell is a subset of Lore

For these other three, the concept is the same, but there are far fewer items that lend bonuses to so-called "special" checks.

That's good to know. This game is complex you can lose track of some rules at times.

Thanks for the clarification.