Well, hold on to your sesame seed bun. I was just reading over the description of the rod of withering when I noticed that it is treated as a "+1 light mace" in all respects except that it "deal no hit point damage." Why not just say it strikes as a Medium +1 Simple weapon for attack and DR purposes instead of giving it damage stats that it won't use? It's similar to saying this vehicle is treated as a bicycle except that it has three wheels.
Perhaps the guy who wrote those descriptions works part time as a census taker or something....
