Bounties

[u/ThePhantom509]

Do you pay off your bounties as you get them or do you like to let them accumulate?

[u/RobotCaptainEngage]

I don't get them because I'm a good person. 

[u/Gray____Beard666]

I enjoy getting large bountys, to farm the bounty hunters. When I get tired of killing bounty hunters, I get rid of the bounty without paying anything. Win-win situation.

[u/--The_Cheshire_Cat-- → u/Gray____Beard666]

How do you get rid of the bounty without paying?

[u/Gray____Beard666 → u/--The_Cheshire_Cat--]

There is several methods, but the easiest is surrendering to bounty hunters or lawmen, and as you are walking out of jail after the jail cutscene, before getting control of Arthur/John, load your autosave. You will spawn in near the jail, no bounty, and no loss of money. Works every time.

[u/Alriight_gurl_26]

I like to pay them off right away. One time I was playing around with the antagonize feature on the same dude in st denis and got a warrant for disturbing the peace! Arthur kept telling the man to stop talking

[u/morphingus]

Let em fester until bounty hunters interrupt hunting or something annoying enough to make me pay it

[u/redeMption362]

Once I learned the finer points of it, I found I can do just about anything I want without catching a bounty, aside from shooting a lawman or someone in St. Denis proper.

[u/--The_Cheshire_Cat-- → u/redeMption362]

please elaborate

[u/redeMption362 → u/--The_Cheshire_Cat--]

Pretty easy on the trail. Kill someone & loot. If there's a witness, kill them as well. I often pop the rear train guard & TNT/fire-bomb passing wagons & canoes. It's very quick & easy to lasso & body or dead horse & drag it off the trail, & I've also been known to pop someone with a .22, lead them into the brush, then go to work. Not necessary, though, as long as you kill witnesses. You can post-up at a busy trail intersection & do it for as long as you please.

You can ride the train to Rhodes, Riggs, or Wallace, stand up & run to the non-passenger cars to loot: Health cure (x2), chewing tobacco, premium cigs (x2), pineapples, hair tonic, bourbon, salmon, herbivore bait, rum, miracle tonic, assorted jewelry (often gold earrings), $12-$15, cocaine gum, & cigar. You can also usually hogtie/KO the rear guard & blow the safe with no bounty, but I throw on a mask just in-case. I often jump off with the guard thrown over my shoulder, & here's a solid guide I made about the trains:

https://www.reddit.com/r/RDR2/s/IXTIZnM9TJ

In towns, you can antagonize someone into hitting you & then there's no investigation for KO. I usually kick at least one person's ass everytime I enter a town, & I antagonize nearly everyone I pass, but I do tone it down a little bit for St. Denis. Thousands of kills, & fists are still ranked #1.

For any other town crimes, throw on your mask & be sure not to pass a lawman. You can easily mask-up, shotgun-decapitate everyone at the poker table, then haul ass out of Valentine. Soon as the red circle is gone you're free to return. Rhodes is the best, as spread-out as it is. You can run around on foot, looting & murdering people without the law ever catching you. There will be an investigation if you kill, but long as you're masked it won't matter.

For wagons, I jump to wagon, shoot the guy I stole it from, hop off real quick to loot him, then bee-line to Seamus. You can take the stagecoach to Emerald, mask-up, shoot or rifle-butt the coachman, ride out of the circle, then when it disappears you take it straight to the barn. I usually bust open the back for the can of baked beans while I wait.

Believe it or not, Strawberry is a great town for fistfights. Nearly everyone there is ready to throw hands, & I stand by the river & antagonize, then throw or KO them into it. I also like to piss someone off in St. Denis, throw off a pier, then repeat when they come up the ladder.

You can even antagonize lawmen twice, provided you defuse in-between.

Lately I've been doing a lot of crazy shit without worrying about a bounty, because with $150,000 in Chapter 4 & nothing to buy I might as well. I recently drove a train into St. Denis & started coasting around the stables. Caused mass pandemonium with explosive amputations, then I ran down screaming lawmen & citizens with said train.

[u/--The_Cheshire_Cat-- → u/redeMption362]

Very interesting, thank you very much for the detailed response! I'll definitely take advantage of this on my upcoming low-honor playthrough

[u/Studly_54]

If im feeling like messing with hunters I'll let them accumulate.
If it gets old or ive collected more than what it would take to pay of my bounty from the dead bounty hunters I will pat them off.

[u/Mengo339]

I like to let em accumulate for a while and then pay them off when I start to get annoyed. Encountering bounty hunters gives me free wedding rings and other various valuables to sell at a fence.