Arthur’s health and stamina decide how much punishment he can absorb and how long he can sprint, fight, or swim before he stalls. Both run on a two-part system, and both stop leveling on their own at eight. Getting them to the real maximum of ten takes challenge sets and reinforced gear, not just more play.
Quick answer: Level health with rowing, fishing, bow and throwing-weapon kills, and Herbalist, Master Hunter, and Weapons Expert challenges. Level stamina by sprinting, swimming, and Explorer, Horseman, and Survivalist challenges. That caps each meter at eight. To reach nine and then ten, finish all 10 challenges in each of a stat’s three categories and buy the matching reinforced equipment sets from the Trapper.
Cores vs. bars: what you are actually filling
Each attribute has an inner core and an outer bar around it. The bar behaves like health or stamina in any other game. Get shot and the health bar drops. Sprint and the stamina bar drops. The core is the survival layer underneath, and it drains slowly on its own even when you set the controller down.
The two are linked. A full core makes the bar above it regenerate faster, and a low core slows that recovery down. When a bar empties completely, further damage starts eating into the core, and when both hit zero, Arthur is finished. In neutral conditions a core drains from full to empty in about 90 real-world minutes, so you only need to top up every hour or so of play.
Keep cores full with food, rest, and the right weight
Provisions refill cores, tonics refill bars, and sleeping refills cores too. Take a nap at camp or in any unoccupied bed and your cores climb back up. Beyond that, what Arthur eats shapes his maximum health directly.
Let him go hungry too long and he becomes underweight, which lowers his max health. Overfeed him and the extra weight hurts him the other way. The target is a normal, middle weight, neither skinny nor heavy. Eating the camp stew once a day is enough to hold that line, and a beef stew at the Valentine saloon fills the health, stamina, and Dead Eye cores in one sitting.
Season meat for gold cores
Cooking meat with a herb like mint or oregano turns it into seasoned meat, and eating it pushes your cores into gold instead of plain white. Gold cores give a stronger effect and hold that boost longer than a normal meal. If you hunt often and keep meat on hand, this is a cheap, repeatable way to stay fortified before a fight or a long ride.
Level health and stamina to eight through play
Ordinary actions earn attribute XP, and that XP caps each meter at level eight. Health rises fastest from repetitive water work, while stamina climbs from movement. Here is what pays out.
| Action | Stat | XP |
|---|---|---|
| Row a boat 100 meters | Health | 20 |
| Catch a fish (by size) | Health | 10–30 |
| Bow or throwing-weapon kill | Health | 20 |
| Win a fist fight | Health | 10 |
| Drink a Ginseng Elixir | Health | 25% of next level |
| Sprint 100 meters (on foot) | Stamina | 20 |
| Swim for 15 seconds | Stamina | 20 |
| Finish a fight under 25% health | Stamina | 20 |
| Drink Aged Pirate Rum | Stamina | 25% of next level |
You do not have to chase elixirs. Rowing a boat for about ten minutes can max the health core on its own, and simply sprinting in a straight line does the same for stamina. The XP needed per level climbs steeply, and progression stops once you bank enough to hit eight.
| Level | Total XP |
|---|---|
| 2 | 50 |
| 3 | 100 |
| 4 | 200 |
| 5 | 350 |
| 6 | 550 |
| 7 | 800 |
| 8 | 1100 |
Note: the Ginseng Elixir gives the biggest single health boost outside of challenges, but it stops helping once you reach level eight, since XP no longer moves the meter past that point.
Push to level nine and ten with challenges and reinforced gear
Levels nine and ten do not come from XP at all. They come from finishing challenge categories and owning the reinforced equipment sets those challenges unlock. Each stat has three linked categories.
| Stat | Challenge categories to finish |
|---|---|
| Health | Herbalist, Master Hunter, Weapons Expert |
| Stamina | Explorer, Horseman, Survivalist |
You can confirm it worked in the pause menu under Player, then your character, where each attribute shows its current number of bars. If a meter is stuck at eight after finishing the challenges, the usual cause is not owning every piece of the required sets. Buy the missing pieces from the Trapper and the bar fills in.
Max both meters to eight early in Chapter 2
There is a way to skip the early grind and push both meters to level eight right at the start of Chapter 2 using tonic XP and an animation cancel. It relies on drinking a tonic without the game registering the item as consumed, so you can drink the same bottle over and over.
From there, the path is the same for everyone. Keep Arthur fed and rested to hold his cores full, lean on gold cores from seasoned meat before tough fights, and grind out the challenge sets when you are ready to take health and stamina all the way to ten.
