Page 8 of the FAQ states:

Q: If a location card tells an investigator that he may move to another location and have an encounter there, what happens if the location has any monsters, clue tokens, and/or a gate on it?

A: Ignore all monsters and clue tokens at the new location. Monsters on the board are only dealt with during the Movement Phase. The investigator has a normal Arkham Encounters Phase at the new location, following either the "Gate" or "No Gate" instructions on pages 8-9 of the rulebook.

The Dunwich, Kingsport, and Innsmouth rulebooks all say that an investigator who moves to another location due to an encounter must fight/evade any monsters at the new location. The fact that this interpretation appears in 3 big box expansions suggests that it was a well established and long standing rule. So what forced the re-think on this one? Was it player pressure? Were people unhappy with the original rule?

No idea; but if you look at the Official Answers from KW thread, you'll see Kevin reconsidered this. Point is that forcing investigators to fight monsters outside the normal movement phase could have triggered some pesky mechanics so that maybe they simply choose the easiest to handle option

I've been trying to think of a few 'pesky mechanics', but none come to mind. Fighting 'off the board' monsters occurs frequently due to encounters. I'm not sure why 'on the board monsters' make a difference. Maybe it's a Spawn monster bug. I'll check the KW thread.

BTW.... Happy New Year!

(too flipped out to think about rules lawyery right now, sorry. Anyhoo, I do play you fight monsters, but I also do play that you get the clue when moved there, as a sort of mini-movement phase nested into the encounters phase)

Happy new year Lee, and happy new year to all our fellow forumites

Happy New Year from Washington D.C.!

And this wouldn't be the first time a rule or a ruling on certain game mechanics has been changed. I emailed some questions to FFG a while back when LatT came out about some of the oddities caused by some of those mechanics. I don't remember exactly what I asked, but it was something along the lines of power tokens and sanity/stamina losses during the final battle, but the answer I received from Kevin Wilson, himself, said (or at least implied) that you could absolutely gain and spend power tokens according to the respective Dark Pact in your possession during the final battle. However, when the FAQ was released, that was changed to now you can no longer gain power tokens during the final battle. I take any clarification and rulings given in the full FAQ to supersede any previous ruling as they really tried to consider all possible mechanic/rule conflicts when creating it. As Julia stated, there must have been something in the mix that caused too big an issue for the creators to want to deal with, so they revised the rule to avoid any such hassle.

Regarding the fact that the rule you are questioning was mentioned in all DH, KH, and IH rulebooks... Keep in mind that most of everything in the KH and IH rulebooks was just copy/pasted directly from DH. So no additional consideration went into those rules when those expansions were created.

Regarding the fact that the rule you are questioning was mentioned in all DH, KH, and IH rulebooks... Keep in mind that most of everything in the KH and IH rulebooks was just copy/pasted directly from DH. So no additional consideration went into those rules when those expansions were created.

Yes, you're right. After reading the KW thread it appears that the rule change was made after Dunwich. But the unaltered rule still found it's way into Kingsport and Innsmouth.

Lee,

This is actually being asked over at BGG , as well. I'm of the opinion that since combat takes place during the Movement Phase , if the Investigator accepts a ride to the Woods which currently has a Gate and a monster ( High Priest ), the Investigator ignores the High Priest and enters the Gate .

Cheers,

Joe

That's how I would do it, Joe.