Getting lots of (what I think is) very good armor and weapons

[Outlander]

I'm level 34 and so far I've gotten full sets of Ebony and Nordic Carved armor sets and all the swords and axes on drops just doing runs and quests.

I had thought most good armor would be stuff that I would have to craft. Am I just extremely lucky or is this not really good armor at all and the good stuff will come later?

[Rez Elwin]

Ebony does start appearing at level 33, it's towards the end of the good loot you can reliably find.

Ebony is pretty good though, it's 3rd in line for the best base game heavy armor, with Dragonbone and Deadric the only ones being better, and those you'd likely have to craft to get full sets. In my 2900 hours I have only ever found 3 pieces of Dragonbone armor, and two times they were boots. Deadric is a little less rare but still far more so than Ebony.

Nordic Carved armor is extremely common with high level bandit Chiefs almost always having a full set.

[Varanus]

Originally posted by Rez Elwin:

In my 2900 hours I have only ever found 3 pieces of Dragonbone armor, and two times they were boots.

Hm, thats a bit unexpected. After 40 or so, I occasionally see it on bandit chiefs. Or just humanoid dungeon bosses. Sometimes those random dudes that attack you on the road. Its rare, but certainly does happen. On some occasions I've seen Krev the Skinner spawn with almost a complete set.

Edit: Checked my 2 most recent characters
-Level 64: Full set of dragonplate, with one set of extra boots. Dragonscale helm and gloves.
-Level 50: 1 dragonplate helms, 2 dragonplate armor, and 2 dragonplate boots.
All from drops. :)

[Luminary]

It may be better to craft it, so you can get the XP and up your ranking on smithing so you can improve the said armor.

There are also a lot of super cool armor mods out there for future use.

[Casual Amateur]

Hmm..... I do recall people abusing potion buff to make any armor/weapon to really over power or turn totally useless. If you know how to abusing buff to make better potion buff for smithing/enchanting.

[Hypertext Eye]

you can easily reach the armor cap without using any potions

[charlea]

Now marching towards the artifacts!

[Morgan Fun Gamer]

It is level balancing you can craft these items at any level aswell but you would need to level up smithing very fast if you get to 90 smithing and unlock a perk daedric smithing I think you can craft Daedric armour these is one of the most powerful armours in the game and if you do 100 smithing and unlock a perk dragon armour smithing you can craft dragon armour this was also in oblivion aswell and in there you could get Daedric armour at level 20 and morrowind also has level balancing as well but I don't know if its for armours but I do know it is for creatures.