I think it will be reasonable to have this penalty.
Let me explain, well if you (even if you are not the killer) loot a person (player or NPC) in a guarded town, and you take something els, but food/weapon/ammo you should be considered as marauder, and be forced by the nearest guard to leave them to the dead body, or els he will shoot you (or some other penalty for not leaving the items back)
You can freely take any kind of foods and drinks and healing items, also weapons and ammos from the dead body, NO armor, money and other items allowed.
The same goes for the looting guards, they should loot only the weapon/ammos of your body. (I dont think they may need the other things)
And another little suggestion is to make possible if you are not looted, to be resurrected with all your items. And not somewhere in some random place in the desert, but in the hospital of the nearest city. Ofcourse you can be charged some money, or other valubale things.
Those suggestions just sound logic, realistic and reasonable to be made.
---------
Another suggestion, that dont have nothing in common with the above one, is to make possible having some kind of animal partner, like dog, rat etc. something little. You may need higher outdoorsman skill and charisma to have one. But they will give you some small bonuses like, detecting the danger from far away (this means, having an option to deny the encounter in the wild etc. And fighting for you in combat (you can balance that, if they do half the damage they do as usual) they wont level up. Or they can, the devs will decide.
----------
All the suggestions remain suggestions, if you dont like them, I am happy to hear why etc. but please dont flame for nothing. Be reasonable for not liking them
\/