I find that, for much of the Ultima series, ranged weapons are the way to go. Thing is, the enemies typically start at the opposite side of the battlefield, and each turn you have a choice between either moving *1* square *or* attacking. This situation favors ranged attacks heavily, and you can get to the point where you can kill most enemies before they reach melee range. (Note that you may need to boost Dexterity to minimize the chance of repeatedly missing, though I note that melee attacks are just as inaccurate.) (I note that Nox Archaist also has this issue with ranged attacks being much better than melee; my one melee character rarely gets a chance to attack.)

I even tend to use ranged weapons in melee because switching is too much trouble, and even costs you a turn in some of the games. The only times I use melee weapons in Ultima 3/4 are:
* When the character can't use ranged weapons. (Not a concern in 4.)
* When in Ultima 3's final dungeon, where only the strongest weapon, which happens to be melee only, has any chance at all of hitting the enemies. (In Ultima 4, any magic weapon can work in the final dungeon, and the two characters who don't get magic ranged weapons (who are also the two who can't cast spells) can just be left dead to avoid slowing down combat.)

In Ultima 5, I like to dual wield a magic axe and a morning star. Can't dual wield two of the same weapons, but with this setup, the axe gives me long range and the morning star, while only having 2 range, ignores obstacles entirely, which is really convenient in some dungeon rooms (to the point of being able to sometimes kill enemies that can't fight back because there's a wall in the way).

Actually, in the earlier Ultima games, up through (and including) Ultima 5, killing is something that will go away. Kill an NPC, leave, and come back, and the NPC will no longer be dead. There's plenty of ways to regain virtue/karma in Ultima 4 and 5.

I remember, in Ultima 3, killing the townspeople of Yew for the treasure chests they drop. Because there are no guards, there are no consequences for doing so. Also, using high level magic against guards is a great way to get lots of XP. (Hint: Wizard spell O (Necorp/ROT in NES) will reliably bring every enemy down to 1 HP, allowing you to use whoever you want to inflict the killing blow.)