Or can I just work my way up through the dungeons/levels, and obtain the best possible gear from dungeon crawling?

I am an archer/melee type class and want to get Dragon armor, but I don't want to smith it...I'd like to find it in a dungeon or killing a dragon or something.

Is this possible?

No you can find it. I read about someone finding a dragon bone shield at a lowish level

You can find dragon armor, but it will take you a long time to get it. Smithing it is definitely much faster. Same with daedric.

If you want to pick it up sooner rather than later, yes. My character is just creeping up on 30 and I have not seen a single piece of daedric armor or weapons. However, I am only a few points away from being able to smith dragon armor...I dont think there are any dragon weapons to forge. I also focused on enchanting so I can just custom make my own gear.

So I'm wondering if we need to be a certain level before Dragon armor starts dropping off mobs, etc? Because being level 15-20 and having the best armor in the game via smithing doesn't make much sense to me.

I`m lvl 54 and I found my first daedric item, the warhammer. Been finding ebony forever and it was nice finally find something instead of having to craft it.

Level 54 character, all I've found is daedric boots, one pair.

Other than that It's always just ebony.

And still haven't found a complete set, just individual parts, very rarely.

Personally, I don't think you should be able to find dragon armour. It's an organic substance which would only have been used by a select number of humans; reason says that after a few thousand years the already rare equipment would be made rarer still by decomposition, unless dragon bones are somehow infinite in their integrity.

In fairness this line of reasoning is also why I'm against the removal of a weapon/armour degradation, and finding perfectly functional iron/steel armour in dungeons.

im lvl 33 currently with 100 in smithing and fully perked out minus the glass.
i just started finding ebony on the regular. ive gone through dragon armor and im now on legendary daedric armor.

Look on the wiki

Cheers

Can someone confirm that Dragon armor is a "craft item only"?

This. The gear that appears as loot on the enemies you kill levels up as you level. IE: A bandit "chief" you kill at level 1 will have fur armor, maybe a piece or two of hide/leather. That same bandit chief, killed at level 20 may have Elven armor instead. Thus, once your character achieves a high enough level, you will start finding Daedric/Dragon armor on your enemies. Oblivion had the same system. However, in Oblivion, you tended to get to a certain point where EVERY enemy became a Glass/Ebony/Daedric loot pinata, and you could gather several full sets of top-tier armor just by running one dungeon... They hopefully learned from this, and made Daedric and Dragon armor much harder to obtain in Skyrim. Since you have the alternate option of leveling Smithing and obtaining the same gear quickly but at a cost in materials, there are two balanced choices:

Smithing: You get your daedric/dragon armor quickly, and possibly even earlier than you really need it, but have to invest time to level, and buy a ton of materials.
Looting: Your daedric/dragon armor is free, but spawns slowly, randomly, and only at higher levels.

It's not, spotted Dragonscale Helm in one of the bandit dungeons.

Ebony armor is plentiful and while Daedric/Dragon is rare the upgrade difference is so marginal.

Just approving it further that you can find Dragon Armor. I found Dragonplate in the Master "Training" Chest in the Thieves guild when I opened it around Level 50 something.

You CAN craft Daedric Armour and weapons without ever investing a single minute in Smithing, let alone taking the Daedric Perk.

me too, I was on level 10 that time

Don't you need smithing to improve these items though? Like to flawless, etc..

I just found Dragonplate armour in a dungeon, so its defiantly not a craft only item. (I'm level 46)

You can improve any armour without any Smithing. The amount you can improve a given material is based on your Smithing skill and the relevant Perk. Low smithing skill might only be able to improve Daedric to Fine, while high Smithing might make it to Flawless, but you'll need the Perk to make it Legendary.

I don't think you should be able to find dragon armour :/

No, I've found a few bits of dragon armour.

Why not. If it can be smithed then it should be able to be found. Some adventuror could of bought it off a smith and it ended up in a dungeon somewhere when that adventuror died. I mean you gotta assume as soon as the dragons came back, people started making dragonscale/bone armor. Your character cant be the only one who is pwning dragons left and right

If you want a full set of this stuff though, you need to get smithing. Or have ridiculous patience.

Lvl 52 character and lvl 42 character here, and I have found 1 daedric sword. That's it. No other pieces of daedric or dragon gear.

Playing 300 hours to get that daedric suit doesn't sound too appealing.

I found Dragonplate Armor of Major Restoration in a ruin at level 37 [I think].