My first thought is that i have to create my character with all different combinations of clothing and weaponry. But there has to be a better way, just not sure what that way is.
make it your way, its likely gonna be fine.
I think that you can have a SHIRT and PANTS bone on your 3D model and then just set the transform to whatever clothing you want via code. Same for the weapons, But you can also modify stats variables through code to have better equipment