Red Dead Online – How to Get Damage Reduction

This guide explains all the best ways to receive 7.5% DMG reduction through making your character fat in game.

The Best Ways to Receive 7.5% DMG Reduction

All credit goes to ZER0_K%!

How to Check Weight

Go to Online Main Menu and Select Player

Select your character’s portrait

Choose General

Bottom left is where you are going to see your weight status. 7.5% increments and reductions are the cap of body weight.

In order to gain weight and keep it you need to eat 3 food items of any kind every 10-20 minutes. Alternatively, you can switch session and consume 3 food items and do it over and over until you are finished. More info on becoming fat further down below.

Cripps’ Campfire

If you don’t mind spending $650 without discounts you can buy Cripps Stew Pot at Camp Outfitters (the big wagon Cripps lives in) and then eat stew there for free after that. You do not need to make any special stew to gain or keep weight. Basic Stew will do, just eat it 3 times in a single sitting.

If you are gaining weight you can go to Main Online Menu and select Camp from free roam you will spawn in your camp again, that way you can eat 3 portions of stew and repeat this process until you gain 7.5 weight. This can be done in a few minutes depending on your internet connection or PC itself.

A little things people probably aren’t aware of is that you do not need to destroy your finger or mouse by clicking it every time to take a spoonful of stew. Just hold it down until your character drains it from the bowl. It is also faster.

Catalogue Orders

After using Harriet’s tonics or getting to fat in-game character status you will need to upkeep this status as it will dissolve over time if you do not eat.

The easiest way for me is to get 99x of candies buy using online catalogue so I can buy them all at once, the fastest way possible, maybe doing other shopping alongside this too. The reason I like candies most is because they are cheapest and you buy them in bulk. You buy 4 candies per $3 dollars. And you need to eat 3 candies in 1 go from time to time to upkeep 7,5% DMG resistance. For reference chocolate bar costs $1 each but not sold in bulk but offers the same weight gaining effects.

You can use the link below, it will take you straight to the grocery and dry goods in the catalogue with candy being on that page:

https://socialclub.rockstargames.com/games/rdr2/catalogue/online/categories/grocery-and-dry-goods

You can also use candies to gain weight by eating 3 and then re-joining the session until you get the weight you want.

I also find it much faster to eat 3 candies than any other food, especially Stew Bowls and Canned stuff. There is barely any animations in play with candies.

Also, if you are looking to eat apples and vegetables this way, you will have to find them manually by holding B to open your satchel and finding them among food as they are mostly used for horses and crafting. That is why I prefer Candy.

You pick up your orders from Train Station Clerks or at your camp’s chest

Another reason why Candies are best is because you can keep 40 of them on you so you don’t need to return to any place to eat them, only to re-stock once in a while.

A full stack of 24 boxes of x4 candies to fill out your chest will cost you mere $72. I advise you to pick them up and then order the rest again.

Free Food

If you are a new player or simply trying to save money there are ways you can get food for free i.e. without camp upgrades or buying it from catalogue or looting it from people or hunting for it.

There are Stew Pots through out the entire game map. They offer 1 bowl of Stew. It is not enough on its own but can be a nice compliment to weight gain process.

I know of two pots, one in Blackwater, the other in Valentine (Click on images below to enlarge).

Come up to the place I marked on the map with the red waypoints and find the stew pots as shown on the images below. If you find the right stew pot it will give you an option to Stew Bowl – Take “R” as there are some not working Stew Pots around.

You can also hold left click mouse button to drain it faster and easier.

Besides that most any Saloon offers you 3 almond portions at the bar. You just need to look for it. Sometimes they will be eaten as players tend to use them for dailies or to gain weight.

Your Moonshine Shack’s bar has almonds too.

Naturalist Role Weight Tonics

This is arguably the fastest way to gain weight (unless you factor in grinding gold to buy the role)

Harriet’s shop is available from the start of the role, the role itself costs 25 Gold Bars but is often on sale. All you need to do is come over to Harriet (if you’ve killed any animals you will need to get sprayed, listen to her talk trash in your face and wait 10 minutes) and then either spend $125 to buy a Potent Weight Gain Tonic to get max weight in one go or $75 for regular Weight Gain tonic if you are half way there.

Also, it is a good idea to stack on regular Weight Gain tonics as sometimes you will run around and forget to eat food and lose a few weight levels so they will bring you right back.

Weight Gain tonics do not appear in Weapon Wheel so you need to hold down “B” to open your satchel and find them manually in the Tonics tab.

Once consumed you will blackout and wake up with more weight.

You can easily find Harriet on the map once you buy her role. She is available in many regions but I prefer Lagras as it is the shortest ride from fast travel point. McFarlane’s Ranch is also quite close.

You can hold upward of 40 tonics of each type with role pouch upgrades!

Honorable Mentions: Hunting, Fishing and Looting

You can also stock on food for free but by paying with your time doing hunting, fishing and looting dead npcs or locations and in some cases preparing raw food at the campfire. However, I do not like this method as it doesn’t give you a lot of food and takes away time. But this is really useful if you enjoy doing these things or leveling up and getting stuff on the way as well.

• You can find animal spawns and campfires for crafting on the map here.

Honorable Mentions: Losing Weight

There is no real incentive to buy Weight Loss tonics or actually lose weight but if you need to you can just run around without eating anything in bulks of 3 or at all.