A couple more rules questions, guys, if I may:

1. Dread Curse of Azathoth. Does this only work against one enemy or does it work for all combat actions against all opponents that you engage in battle in that phase? (i.e. if there are 2 or more monsters you're seeking to engage in combat, do you get +9 for both, or just for the first?). I gave myself a "generous" interpretation, but am not sure I should have done.

2. If you return from the Other Worlds and dutifully collect your explored counter, what happens if you don't actually want to close the gate behind you? (because, say, there's another investigator about to come through next turn) Are you obliged to have an Arkham Encounter? or can you just basically stand there and simply miss the Arkham Encounter phase? If you are indeed obliged to attempt to close the gate OR have an Arkham Encounter, could you either (a) simply choose to fail the attempted gate closure or (b) select your lower skill of Lore or Fight to ensure the closure is unlikely or, preferably, impossible (e.g. my Fight is 5, but my Lore is 1. The gate is Yuggoth, a -2 gate, so I choose to try and close the gate with a Lore roll, knowing I will fail).

Thanks for any advice.

There was once a lovely pinned thread called "official answers by Kevin Wilson" were the "how long lasts a spell" question was largely addressed. I'll try to sum this up here.

A spell lasts:

a) as long as you keep devoting hands to it

b) as long as the combat is not over

and here by combat we should read "a combat between the investigator and ONE monster".

So, let's say you are in a space with two monsters. You enter combat with the first one, and successfully cast the Curse of Azathoth. You then roll your combat check, adding the 9 dice granted you by the spell, but, for some misfortunate accident, you fail to score the let's say three successes required to kill the monster. You receive the combat damage, you're not knocked unconscious, and a new round of combat begins. The spell is always active, so you can use it again, if you wish (no dice to be rolled, no sanity to be lost, no nothing): this time you score the three successes required and kill the monster. Then you turn to the second monster. The Dreaded Curse is not active any more

As for your second question:

A gate replaces a location, so there is no way you can have an encounter if there is an open gate there.

When you return to Arkham, you have two options:

a) attempting to close / seal the gate

b) do nothing

Clearly, if you choose b), during the movement phase of the next turn, you'll have to deal with monsters eventually lurking on the gate (the "free pass" lasts only the round you return to Arkham)

Hope this clarifies your doubts

Very helpful. Thanks, Julia.

I know this reply is kind of late, but I thought I'd chime in.

We play with Richard Launius's house rule variant that the gate does not encompass the entire area (just a small part of it), and therefore an investigator may choose to interact with the gate OR have an encounter in the area. See Launius, Richard, "A Few House Rules for Arkahm Horror," Rule 4 ( located at http://tinyurl.com/qctpo22 (pdf)). In that circumstance, where an investigator exits a gate from another world (by any means possible) during the movement phase, but does not or cannot attempt to close the gate in the Arkham Encounters phase, he/she must have an encounter at that location based on the usual rules for such an encounter.

We find use of this rule (and the required consequence described above) works pretty well with the heightened difficulty of playing 2-3 expansion boards, allowing for some additional tactical/strategic options to deal with the mayhem that invariably occurs with such a setup.