Rogue Reach Attack ability question

[Mambus]

Greetings,

I was reading up on skills to determine an ideal party setup and was kind of expecting my rogue to be forced to go ranged. Then I found out about the Reach Attack ability rogue learns from getting 12 points in Assassination. This ability should enable the rogue to attack with melee weapons from the back row.

Could someone please confirm that getting this ability makes the backrow rogue a viable melee character? Obvious problems could be energy consumption on every backrow strike, cooldown on usage etc. I would really like to have a viable melee rogue without sacrificing two fighter setup in the front row. Besides, I just hate collecting hundreds of daggers, arrows and such after every fight with the ranged rogue.

Does anyone know any details on this?

Thanks in advance

[antti]

Yeah, you can attack with a melee weapon from the back row if you have the reach ability.

Oh also regarding collecting the thrown weapons: I'm not sure if you know already but we have an auto-pickup for the missile weapons so there's not that much manual labor involved in it.

[Kthanid]

an auto-pickup for the missile weapons so there's not that much manual labor involved in it.

I can't tell you how thankful I am for that. I've spent my entire life avoiding playing ranged characters in so many games due to a lack of this feature. Annoying micromanagement and the "mini-game" of battling the inventory system to keep picking up projectiles is such a pain in the butt. Thanks in advance for the auto-pickup, it might mean I actually try a rogue out.

[Crashbanito]

I'm battling that with Dungeon Master currently. That and the fact that rangers in that game can only hold/equip 5-6 ammo at a time. My guy had a sling, but I couldn't find any ammo for it unfortunately.

[Fnord]

an auto-pickup for the missile weapons so there's not that much manual labor involved in it.

I can't tell you how thankful I am for that. I've spent my entire life avoiding playing ranged characters in so many games due to a lack of this feature. Annoying micromanagement and the "mini-game" of battling the inventory system to keep picking up projectiles is such a pain in the butt. Thanks in advance for the auto-pickup, it might mean I actually try a rogue out.

I'm in the same boat as you in regards to this. In the old infinity engine games, I avoided using bows until there was a fan patch that increased the arrow stacking limit to 9999, and in Ultima 7 I did not even bother with using ranged weapons due to the ammo annoyance, so this is absolutely fantastic news. I did not intend to give my rogue any ranged attacks because I did not want to deal with having to look for ammo everywhere, but now I've changed my mind.

[Point08]

Will there be a chance of breakage of arrows? Can you only pick up misses, or all arrows?

[Hissssa]

I'm battling that with Dungeon Master currently. That and the fact that rangers in that game can only hold/equip 5-6 ammo at a time. My guy had a sling, but I couldn't find any ammo for it unfortunately.

You're kidding right.... there's a lot of rock piles that leave behind boulder/rock/club when they die. On level 4 you should have around 8-10 rocks when you get to the screamer food room.

That being said I know your pain... I thought I has lost one of my poison darts and I went all over part of a level to find it (thankfully I remembered which level was the last place I used it). Another problem with dungeon master is that the range damage pales in comparison to melee. I got Hissssa up to a low master fighter with only a bit of grinding in the screamer room and just hacking through normal play. Four slayer arrows and a regular arrow fired from the crossbow don't put a dent into the monsters later in the game. But I was killing most enemies with two hits with my fighter with the hardcleave (best weapon ever).

[Crashbanito]

Funny I didn't know rocks could be used as ammo for it. I just found a bow, so there's no point in even using it anymore.

[Mr.Monopoly]

I have a question about Attack range as well.
If i have a soldier (melee) character at the back of my party, but he is wielding a Spear, would he still be able to attack the monsters?
and is there any Melee weapons that could do this if the Spear can't?

[Hissssa]

Funny I didn't know rocks could be used as ammo for it.

IS there any other kind of ammunition that a sling uses?

Sadly ranged damage in Dungeon Master is completely pathetic. You're much much better off with 2 front line fighters than trying to "get by" with a rogue. That being said I just finished playing the game today (18 hours or so to do 99% of the game) and when I started I had one wizard with the sling and when I got the bow the other back line character (my priest) was using that weapon. If nothing else it's great for getting ninja levels which can give you dexterity/vitality.