Using an Empty Actor to simulate a character? [fake custom gravity]

I’ve tried asking a few questions about changing gravity (as well as faking it without C++) and such, but after considering what I need, I think I’m still looking for something too complicated.

I’m making a 3D First Person Puzzle game that doesn’t have any mesh, animations, or special movement conditions (other than swimming? I can still look into simulating it possibly?)
Do I really need a default character pawn with all of these preset codes that cause problems with player rotation, etc.?

The only thing I need, is a collision box (to make an object not fall through a floor), and a phsyics based movement system that has maximum friction (to prevent sliding when walking).


Is it theoretically possible for me to make an empty actor, and simply make the player posses it by default (singleplayer, so I don’t need code for net performance), and then add a physics enabled object to act as a collisions and movement machine for the character and make it still feel like a simulated basic character, essentially throwing out a ton of code I don’t need, and making my own movement system in Blueprints from scratch?

Like, as stupid as it sounds, could I make a person play as a physics object (even putting the host pawn for the FPS camera as a child of that object) and simulate basic fake motion without ever needing the character programming code?

In creating a fully physics-based character with this method, what roadbumps (essentially major bugs, within a puzzle-based game, where high paced skill is not as necessary) would I have with what I said I don’t need?