Discovered this today, purely by accident. A loading screen tip told me that I could queue actions by holding shift, and i went to test that. A common combat sequence of mine was to shoot my crossbow then swap to melee weapons.

 

To reproduce:

-Be a rogue. I haven't tested with other classes.

-Be out of combat.

-Have a ranged weapon equpped in hand (I used an arbalest), and a melee weapon set ready (i had a flail/hatchet).

-While the game is paused, order rogue to use crippling or blinding strike on an enemy in range.

-Without unpausing, hold shift and click a melee weapon set. (holding shift may or may not be required, I only tested it while holding shift)

-Unpause

 

Your character will swap and use the melee weapons for the crippling/blinding strike, without moving into melee range. Future attacks go back to requiring melee range, so I believe the issue is in the ability's code. It registers a valid target for the ranged version of the ability, but doesn't notice that weapons were swapped.

Maybe that explains when the Bandit leader in Black Meadow managed to take down my wizard with a special melee attack from half a screen away