I doubt that it was a 'feature' .. but, rather an honest to goodness bug.
There's nothing keeping you from changing combat behavior - or any behavior for that matter - to anything that you wish
That's the whole point of customization!
There is no specific code for necro pet melee combat. All pets (mobs?) share the same basic code.
You would need to add special checks to account for the pet class and (probably) just add an empty-handed damage check to whatever weapon damage is reported.
This is the attack processing code:
https://github.com/EQEmu/Server/blob...one/attack.cpp
That would be a good place to start and just follow the calls backwards as needed.
Just remember..unless you explicitly specify to only check for client-owned pets, all pets - including mob-owned - will receive this modifier.