We consider the system of equations A k (x) = p(x)A k−1 (x)(q(x) + k i=0 Ai(x)) for k r + 1 where Ai(x), 0 i r, are some given functions and show how to obtain a close form for A(x) = k 0 A k (x). We apply this general result to the enumeration of certain subsets of Dyck, Motzkin, skew Dyck, and skew Motzkin paths, defined recursively according to the first return decomposition with a monotonically non-increasing condition relative to the maximal ordinate reached by an occurrence of a given pattern π.