EXACTLY what happened to me >_< And that was right after getting eaten by the dragon three times in a row before I finally slashed it to death.

('cept I was level 12 as I did this just last night, but the fight still wasn't what I'd call easy).

Not so much to dragons though, I saw a giant kill a dragon, and a mammoth...

There are plenty of rocks to jump on. If you are wearing light armor then sprint and leave them in your dust. First encounter with a frost troll, I jumped on a rock and shot it. It ran away.

Nothing like taking on a Storm cloak / Imperial camp and 5 mins later screaming like a little girl cause of a big cat chasing you.

Dont forget Saber cats some of them are very very powerfully too and in packs they are even more dangerous. Now if only there was something to REALLY fear in the waters of Skyrim id be happy. Slaughterfish don't don't cut it i want to take on sea serpents. We are in a nord mythology mind frame and design with this game anyways so why not?

about that frost troll.... No matter what I did I got horribly destroyed, except for one thing. I used and simply sprinted past the thing with my rediculous stamina gain and ran all the way to high hrothgar.

Bears are harder to kill then dragons. We should be able to absorb bear souls!

I'm a Battlemage as well and feared them when I was level 12. Haha.

Whenever I found a bear (or a bear found me. ) I would run to the nearest rock and freak out. I think it's just how it's supposed at that level. 25+ is when they were less frightening.

TIP: Trolls--Let them initiate an attack and then quickly back up while attacking them. Works wonders! And be sure to use proper magic against them. (i.e. not ice).

turn your difficulty down

also snow/frost variety of monsters are tougher, snow sabre cat almost killed me at lvl 15, snow bears are just as tough

Only problem is that you can't fight in the water. I had to use a shout to kill a slaughterfish yesterday just so that I could fast travel.

I have a tougher time with bears and saber cats than I do dragons. Something in the balance department is off-kilter.

Actually, all this makes me think they should have put spears (not throwing spears) in the game. Weren't they in Morrowind? Never played it. Anyway, a melee spear isn't a good weapon against a guy with a sword or an axe unless you're in a very close formation like a phalanx, but it would really be a good weapon against an unarmed beast like a bear, big cat or a troll or something. Long reach, good at keeping them back, lets you stab at them while preventing them mauling you. Probably would be a decent weapon against a dragon on the ground for the same reason. Isn't St. George usually depicted as doing in a dragon with a spear? Although Fafnir was killed with a sword and Smaug with an arrow.

I killed a dragon in 4 tries not 30 minutes ago. Then it took me 9 tries to beat 2 ice wolves... HMMM

The only times I get knocked by cats and bears is when I'm not paying attention. Bears give warning, but cats are sneaky. Twice I was scaling a snowy mountain and get taken by a cat from behind. Be careful trying to outrun them, too, they're quick. You have to be more clever (use terrain).

My pure lvl 12 warrior took on an Ice Troll and luckily lived to regret it. I noticed after a few blows had been exchanged that I had like 5 HP left and he was regenerating to full. Thankfully I run faster scared than he does mad

Level 12 is apparently nothing to brag about in this game, which makes me feel a bit better about getting there so early in the game. I thought lvl 12 was waaay too high that early, but apparently not so.

You can also use the peace shout to pacify the bears and cats if they prove too powerful.

@OP:

Don't worry about it too much. Bears, trolls, cats can be pretty tough at lower levels (particularly trolls) - it's a direct result of very few perks obtained and consequently not so good gear and damage. Even though they were hard, i found them to be good for leveling skills since you hit and get hit by them a lot in a single fight.

Once you get your Dragon or Deadric armor/weapon sets and a decent amount of perks however, the game basically becomes almost instant easy mode, especially, if you overkill the enchaments and gear improvement via potions or custom crafting gear. By about level 30-35 you'll probably be 1 or 2-shotting half of the Skyrim wildlife. By level 50 the only thing that will kill you will be faceplanting from a 300 foot cliff.

There is a problem with difficulty scaling ie, one bandit is normal one is superman but in general yes most enemies and animals are not leveled to you. Learn to pick your fights and use unrelenting force to toss stuff off cliffs or down mountains, usually kills anything outright even giants.

If you mean are you supposed to get hit very hard, then yes. These guys all hit like a Freight Train on a Runaway.

Lolwut? Surely that depends both on the bear and where you hit with the axe. If you hit something vital, or damage the muscles/tendons too bad, it's not going to be coming after you anymore. One axe to the head = dead bear.

Actually I wouldn't at all want to tackle a bear with any sort of axe. Bears have notoriously solid skulls. I would be nice if somebody who's hunted bears could post about this, but my understanding is that you need a reasonably high caliber rifle to hunt bear. Clocking them upside the skull with even an axe might well not put down a seven foot tall, seven hundred pound grizzly, and I wouldn't want to take even one shot from a grizzly even wearing full plate armor.

I hate those trolls with every fiber of my being.

Every. Effing. Fiber.

Stupid trolls....

I've only run into the snow troll on the way up the mountain, but that one encounter was enough to make me sympathize.

If a bear attacked you in real life, do you think it would be easy to kill it?

I was level 12 with no armor and got my ass handed to me by sabre cats...
Once i got to level 20 i came back and ran into another sabre cat
I was like Oh NO!!!! But as it came at me i one shotted it....
I got cocky and tried to take on a giant and he one shotted me...
Then i got to level thirty and now everything is hard...
I can no longer one shot sabre cats and bears and giants are just as hard....