I would like to see more unforgiving wound systems, for example, being able to lose an arm. It isn't something you really see often in games and playing through a game where the possibility for that happening existing, makes a player need to be more careful. The whole idea of a person keeping their body whole throughout an entire setting is in my opinion overdone and is a limitation in the sense that the OP is talking about.
I mean, that's the sort of 'limitation' that is there to keep the game fun. If your level 1 character takes an arrow to the knee and you have to just give up and retire to a life of mucking stables, there's not much of a game. Games also don't make you stop to take a shit or brush your teeth. The assumption is that if your character was wounded enough to lose a limb, he may as well be dead anyways so the devs saved you the trouble of finding a cliff to hurl your worthless ass off of.
Wound systems and loss of limbs can be interesting if done well.
How to not make it be an automatic death sentence for low level chars:
- add locational HP and damage, so your hand won't be chopped off at the first hit and you know when the limb's condition is getting dangerously low
- add locational armor so you can protect the most vulnerable parts of your body with high quality armor
- make limb severing only happen on a critical hit, or when the limb's locational HP has been reduced below zero (when locational HP reach 0 you suffer a broken wrist or something, which disables the limb until it's healed; but when it receives more damage it gets severed and you won't be able to use it anymore, sry pal)
- make even a crippled character still viable to play: if you lose your sword hand, you'll have to use weapons with your other hand now at a malus because it's not your strong hand; but you can strap a shield to the other arm that doesn't need to be held with a hand; so you get a major malus but it's not game-breakingly bad
- don't make low level characters as weak and susceptible to random chance as in D&D but develop a more sensible system (D&D is only fun between levels 3 and 12, anything below is too lolrandom anything above is too roflstompy overpowered)
You can also add cool shit like some NPCs reacting to your missing limb, and it giving you the reputation of a grizzled veteran, making intimidation checks easier or something.