Why aren't NPCs fighting back?
If NPCs aren't fighting back when you attack them, chances are that you are playing on either a GM character, or a character on the admin-account (which all have GM privileges by default). One of the privileges of being a GM (or an admin-character) is that you are flagged as "invulnerable" by default. Since NPCs (and players) can't attack invulnerable characters, this means they will never fight back when you try to attack them. In fact, UOX3 might not allow you to attack them at all.
Try turning off your invulnerability by using either of these commands:
'invul false
'set vulnerable 1