I've been playing for over 100 hours and haven't seen a dragon swoop down pick someone up and drop them out of the sky. Have you seen this? Have you heard about this?

Never picked anyone up and drop them from the sky, I've only had a dragon pick up an NPC and through then after shaking them in the mouth a few times

one picked up my dog i saved the poor stray from a pack of wolves only to have him taken by the talons of a dragon 2 days later

I think this was only ever suppose to happen with giants. I never saw a reference to it otherwise.

It could have been a unique encounter, now that I think about it. Could be wrong, though.

happens at the very begining in Helgen. Alduin picks up a guard off the wall and drops him near you as your about to enter with Hadvar or Ralof (but its closer to Hadvar's door), i have tried to catch him when he falls but it didn't work lol. And it also happens again during the main quest line "The Fallen" but since spoilers are not allowed in this section and i dispise people that spoil out of section i will not go into further detail. all that matters is at the start of the dragon encounter during this quest the dragon performs this action too. basically in my 300+ hour gameplaying i have only seen this happen these 2 instances.

although during some dragon fights in towns and settlements, especially when their are hold guards around fighting with you, it sometimes looks like the dragon is swooping in to grab someone but then does not. this could be a bug yet to be fixed since there are more pressing bugs to adress at this point still, the dragons are atleast fightable again.

could explain the hilarious "Nose Diving Dragon Move" that you see during almost all dragon fights lol, this could be when they are supposed to grab someone.

Those are scripted are they not. I think the OP is talking about randon happenings of the action

160 hours and i havent seen it. usually if there are other npcs around to fight the dragon either chomps at them or uses garlic breath attack.

ah yes I believe you are right Twitch. Atleast to my knowledge those are the only instances I have seen. Appologies if you already knew of those 2.

Its a finishing move, that can only be done while the dragon is flying obviously. It is excessively rare.

@re123: have you actually seen a non-scripted dragon perform this move in your game? im jealous if so. so if i let a dragon just about kill me and then take to the sky again there is a chance this would happen if my health is low enough? like instead of it just blasting flame/frost at me or any other flying attack it has? or is it just NPC's? kinda like the grab you and shake you around a bit then toss you finishing move they perform right? thanks for your help!

They probably toned it down because dragons could pick you up and drop you from a high height instantly killing you. It would become annoying.

I've seen it once, but only once. =/

and I'm not talking about Alduin doing it to the random guard at Helgen btw lol. It was a random guard on a dog I bought. >_<

I have seen it happen twice and I'm 400 hours in. Once outside Windhelm a dragon picked up the guard and dropped him from a high, and another when I was on the far west side of the map near Dawnstar an Ancient dragon picked up another guard and dropped him while i was on my horse.

It happens but i have only seen it happen with Ancient dragons.

I've seen it happen with Mirmulnir at the Western watchtower.

It happened to me when I was fighting an Elder. I was standing on an area that could not fascilitate any landing really, up on a mountain...but still had enough room for it to maneuver around me.

I've seen it happen only once in 230 hours and it was to a mammoth near Silent Moon Camp. Some bandits were fighting the giants/mammoths nearby and then a dragon showed up and attacked everything. It surprised me to see since I didn't know they could do that sort of thing.

Reminded me of this video of an eagle hurling a goat off a cliff...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iFOVi0vJGU

I've seen it happen many times. Once I was the victim.