Basically, the point of this thread is to tell you guys how awesome giants are. I know you've seen them, just as I had, but I never would have expected this -

I was wandering about as usual, when I ran into a good old bandit camp/fort area. After sneaking about with my newly aqquired (spoiler alert?) Dark Brotherhood armour, and unleashing a few arrows into the poor souls that were patrolling the wooden palisades, I noticed a lone, wondering giant walk straight into the camp, club raised above his head. After a few moments of intense screaming, and of arrows and spells littering the air, the giant walked back out, victorious.

Being the type of Nord thats up for a challenge, I unsheathed my dual elven daggers, and approached the giant cautiously.. Once again, club raised above his head, the giant ran at me. After just a few seconds of sprinting away from it, my heart skipped a beat - Hearing a blood-curdling scream, and just seeing the gigantic flying reptile being thump down on the ground infront of me told me I was trapped between a giant and a dragon.

I had to act fast - I scrolled through my inventory, quickly coming across a potion of invisibility. This gave me just enough time to escape the chaotic scene below, and retreat up to a nearby hilltop to spectate the inevitable - a duel between a dragon, and a giant. I expected an epic battle was about to begin.

The duel began, and the giant raised his club - and brought it smashing down.. And uhm.. Yeah, thats it. The giant killed the dragon in one hit. I mean, its not a bad thing - I didn't have to kill the dragon myself - but I didn't expect giants to be that strong! Has anyone else come across this yet?

TL;DR - Giants can one shot dragons.

Discuss.

Yeah, this thread can be summed up with one link:

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2011/11/09

Enjoy!

You must be playing in the easiest difficulty for it to be one shot, also i was fighting a dragon once in bonestrewn, we was both close to death, dragon burned a mamoth and the giant finished the dragon for me, peace.

Giants
Something is definitely wrong.

I'm telling you, the dragon didn't even have a chance to even move before it's head was mashed up. I didn't choose a difficulty - didn't see the option? Won't that mean I'm on normal? Oh, and DunmerAssassin, I have no problem killing Ice Trolls, but I can't do a thing to giants.

you start of 2 below normal on default i think. "Adept" is normal.

Yeah dont [censored] with giants or they'll [censored] you up lol. I had one 1shot me in Beast Mode ><

And here i thought DRAGONS were supposed to be really dangerous.........

I really enjoy the Giants. They are super fun to fight. I'm an Orc and have to use my Rage to bring one down quickly and even then I usually have to bust out a bow since I duel wield instead of using a shield.

I witnesed a battle with Giant and Dragon on adept. It started with me fighting the dragon and then the dragon flew off after the giant for some reason. By the time I got there the giant had won, but only had a small amount of health left.

At the default difficulty, giants and frost trolls are far and away the scariest beings in the game. It's surreal.

Yeah, I wonder why the citizens of Skyrim are so scared of the dragons when there is giants roaming around? And I havn't found a friendly one yet - All have attacked me on sight. I have to admit that dragons should have been a bit harder to kill.. But then again there is quite alot of them!

Giants appear to **** all over the easier dragons, but has anyone seen a Giant fight one of the higher tiers of dragon?

I think what's happening is that the ambient dragons are scaled to your own level while the giants aren't.

About twenty hours in I was heading north, past one of the many bandit infested forts, when I noticed a dragon overhead. I crested the hill as it landed and noticed a Giant chasing a rabbit. It quickly switched off and started hammering bandits into the sky, before the dragon began to attack it. The giant, the dragon and the bandits began to attack me (along with a couple of wolves as I backpeddled onto a hill), and they all began to attack one another, too. Contrary to the OP, the Giant and Dragon were evenly matched. The wolves and bandits were not.

The bandits, minus one screaming in the fort, died rather quickly. I finished the wolves and then the giant and I both attacked the dragon. The fight was long and involved a lot of switching targets as they'd sometimes try to attack me in tandem. I used Whirlwind to get out of the path of the giant's club on more than one occasion. I eventually managed to kill the dragon at range with a few iron arrows while it engaged the giant.

I managed to kill the giant, which was severely wounded, soon after, as I was absorbing the dragon's soul. The giant collapsed on top of the dragon's bones, which was nearby a pile of bandit and wolf corpses. All of this had happened just as I was passing by. I didn't even have any business at this place.

So, I'd say giants are more powerful than you'd think. I haven't seen a giant one-hit a dragon, but I supposed it could take out one of the little ones that seem to randomly show up from time to time.

The problem with making dragons stronger is that they randomly attack towns. If they were too strong, you'd be stuck with ghost towns all over. Giants can be difficult because they'll rarely get close to a city to harass it, and anyone that comes across it in the wild is either unimportant, or essential and won't die anyway.

Yours was an even fight? I suppose what Gigan said is true then - The dragons must be level scaled. I for one am ~level 13/14, I can't remember.

I was fighting a dragon, when it few off to attack a giant, i figured HEY THATS MY DRAGON SOUL, so i followed, and killed it of with the giant, then the giant turned to me, started swinging, i clicked my left mouse button and pulled of a finisher. Was quite surprised to say the least, that giant would had one shotted me with the health i had left.

I could see a fight between a Giant and a Blood Dragon being pretty even, but unless Giants have some serious cold resistance a Frost Dragon would destroy them. When dealing with Elder Dragons and up it isn't even a question. Now when I teamed up with a Giant against an Elder Dragon the poor Elder didn't stand a chance, but I can solo those things despite their ability to kill me on a crit if my heal is at 60%.

Common Dragons are pretty pathetic though.

As for dragons attacking town, I've seen an Elder Dragon attack a town. The townsfolk are surprisingly tenacious, if you act decisively when an Elder Dragon attacks you shouldn't have a problem keeping the townsfolk alive.

I'd even put trolls ahead of Giants really.
Saw a troll the other day, way up in the middle of nowhere fighting a White Dragon, a Mammoth and 3 Horkers.
He was winning.
When will Trolls be an officially playable race, Bethesda? I mean, outside the internet of course.

Frost dragons dont carry a strong offence like the fire ones do. Fire dragons kick my ass 9 times outta' 10.

The one that the giant killed was common, so I think that pretty much explains it. If the dragons I've been fighting are common though, I'm dreading the elite ones.

I don't get this troll fear, I kill frost trolls all the time. They are exactly the same as fighting trolls in Oblivion.

I've never had trouble with any dragon that breathed fire except for Elder Dragons. The Frost Dragons kick my ass with their breath weapon, and I'm a Nord with my natural frost resistance.

I'm thinking the Dragons must be level-scaled, or or over-scaled depending on how high you raise the difficulty. I fought a common Frost last night and watched it duke it out with a Giant for a few seconds. The Dragon took a good few hits before flying off again and when it landed, it's health wasn't dropped that much. It could be the commons are just a lot stronger after level 30, or the fact I'm on master. Hard to say. I think Giants must have some cold resist though, because that particular Giant was barely wounded when I went to kill it.

Must have been one of the lower level dragons, because according to my stats some dragons would be able kill several giants without a problem.

The dragons with names are the strongest. Ancient dragons are pretty weak, I've found.

Dragons