Reach Weapons and Large+ Creatures?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

If you have a 10-foot reach weapon and are standing immediately adjacent to a creature that takes up a 10x10 foot space, can you target the back squares of the creature's space and thereby still utilize the reach aspect of your weapon without actually having a space between you and your opponent? I realize you could target the upper two squares next to you, but what about the back squares of the creature's space? Aren't you attacking through the creature?

 

[Starglim]

The back squares would, at the very least, have cover. This also means that you could not get attacks of opportunity with your reach weapon.

 

[Dross]

This was asked before the Crash. It somewhat depends on how you adjudicate the word "adjacent".

A) regardles of size, an adjacent creature cannot be hit with a reach weapon, or
B) a reach weapon cannot hit parts of a creature that are adjacent to the weilder (and they get cover from the closer parts of the critter).

My thoughts are that without special training (feats and the like) "A" is the way things work.

A Dragon issue (maybe 331) and the PHB2 have feats that allow attacking adjacent foes as well as other tactics.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I'm going with A) at the moment.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Yes, you can hit him, and no, the creature does not provide cover to itself.

I'm too lazy to go re-formulate all my arguments from last time, but take it on faith that if you disallow this, you get into some very, very odd rules convolutions.