True warriors know how to use a bow when needed.

it makes no sense NOT to use bow or magic to get that dragon out of the sky... unless the dragon lands for some reason

It's called roleplay my friend.I mean you could even slash cliffracers in morrowind and didn't have to use a bow or magic. I'll just assume dragons do swoop down to attack. I won't know for sure untill 11.11.11. Thanks for the answers guys!

Lets say hypothetically a barbarian, which to me fits dovahkiin, can use dragon shouts. But an over honourable Red Guard that decides he is not of dragon blood, and will Not use the necessary and dishonourable warfare of range, will be obliged to find other methods to kill dragons if need be.
The honourable will probably fall.

At the very least, I don't play pure anything... it is just not role-play or game-play worthy enough for me. Screw being a warrior, screw honour, be a soldier and shoot people with arrows. Oh and shoot dragons.

yeah its probably that ...

The dragons do seem to land at random as we've seen in some of the videos from Bethesda. It seems like they land and you can do damage, but if you do too much damage then they CAN'T fly, if that makes sense. If you're going melee only, I guess you have to wait for it to land of its own volition then damage it enough so that it can't fly.

Use throwing weapons if you PC gamer such feature will be added by mods eventually.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sjMdYnOZ_k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aY7FXpoJCE&t=4m50s
Otherwise shout on dragon all time until he will not land.

What are you roleplaying a moron? If you set out into a land filled with skyward enemies and refuse to use a ranged weapon, well then you deserve a gruesome death.

Only in the case that the dragon has a bare patch on his briast

No dragons land when they want to, but they crash to the ground and cannot fly again once they have taken enough damage.

Have you not seen the gameplay previews?

if it helps you with your RP, remember that in a time period where they do not have super markets, your character needs to have a way to get food for free. so basically what im saying is that your character should know how to hunter (archery),fish, and gather.

Archery is a warrior skill.

I'm more worried how that dagger wielding assassin will kill a dragon.

Actually Marksman is a thief skill that is governed by agility in Oblivion.

But the dagger wielding assassin would probably ambush the dragon with a sneak attack, with daggers laced with the dragonbane poison.

I thought this was the Skyrim section?

*double-checks*

Yeah, it's the Skyrim section. Alchemy was magic skill in oblivion, now stealth. Archery was stealth, now warrior.

Dragons land occasionally and randomly mix combat strategies. You'll have enough time to cause some damage when they're trying to claw and bite their targets. Things will be rough for those wanting to take them solo without ranged weapons or magic, at least bring a companion.

Cant see why an assasin in RP terms would only focus on one means of combat though - surely an assasin would learn many weapon styles that would benefit him in his job of assasinating people.

1. Dragons land on their own.
2. Shouts.
3. Todd swinging his axe at a dragon as it flew passed him "suggests" dragons can be hit by melee attacks while swooping past.

I think playing a pure warrior would be fun and interesting when trying to take down a dragon.

This reminds me of Holy grail:

Arthur: What are you going to do, bleed on me?
...
Black Knight: Oh, oh, I see, running away then. You yellow bastard! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!

You can bite the dragons leg off.

they land randomly as seen put side blesl falls barrow, it lands out side and burns tod before tod runs in side, that and you can spam the low powered version of shouts the cool down has been stated as seconds. fus fus fuz that dragon. lol. personal ill hide from his attacks then when he land ill drop the bomb! nord pure bred warrior no nonsence, no magic or archery, im gunna even tone down the shouting.

Run into an area with cover: (stay close to some big rocks, hide into a forest, a building ruin, etc...) The dragon will be forced to land to continue the fight.

Look pure warrior or not almost any warrior out there has had to have used a bow a few times in there life.

I had this problem too but I think I figured out a way around this with my knight class. Because I am short range I can't attack flying targets but because ill use speech I can get archers to tag along with and with illusion I can control any nearby NPCs and make them attack the dragon. They might reveal some way of damaging the dragon as a short range melee user. But the real means of killing dragons are the dragon shouts. When the dragon dive bombs you slow down time and beat the crap out of him as he's passing by slowly. Use fire breathing if he's out of your weapon range. Storm call to pound him with lightning. Summon your own dragon to tear him down and you finish it off. That's why we are dragonborn.

Guys, I remember Todd saying in an interview that a dragon's "Fire Breathing" and all it's other ranged attacks are actually shouts. If that's the case, I assume they are on a cool down the same as your shouts. That would mean that in order to attack you consistently, a Dragon needs to make melee attacks while it's Ranged attack recharges. So Weather the "storm" and attack it when it comes into range to attack you.

I know legolas kind've turned bows into the weapon of choice for poncy elves. But drawing a bow string back takes quite a bit of muscle - and stronger archers make for stronger arrows.

A trained warrior with bulging muscles could use a pretty hefty bow and a very tight bowstring - and unleash arrows with armour piercing velocity. Nothing un-manly about totally perforating some poncy mage in his magic pyjamas who thought running away would save him from your wrath.

Why wouldn't a smart warrior decide he should try using magic and bows to take down an airborne foe? I think a smart warrior would do that. Maybe he'd get really good at it or decide he only wanted to use those weapons when he had to because it wasn't something he liked very much.