Is there a way to create a faux weapon that does no damage when you attack with it, AND does not register as an attack on the NPC/creature?

Or, is there a way to do custom animations using the attack button that can trigger OBSE events like OnAttack and OnRelease. I would like to create a way to do different NPC to NPC interactions and track via animation events to determine actions.

I guess I might be able to do this by starting an animation and ensuring the proper event tags are in the animation sequence?