FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
Variant Human Impact
1. Combat feats are generally strong in combination with high stat and multiple combat feats. Variant human greatly speeds up that process. A variant human fighter for example can have all his offensive elements by level 8. A variant human Paladin gets there at level 12. However, if variant human is banned then the fighter takes till level 12 and the paladin till level 16. Those are the levels that most groups won't reach in practice.
2. Other combat feats are used to increase concentration saves. Caster's tend to love these so long as they get them without impacting their stat increases. Without variant human that would generally put casters around level 12 before we would see these kinds of concentration boosting combat feats.
3. Defensive feats like Heavy Armor master aren't nearly as good if you get it near tier 2 as opposed to the start of tier 1.
4. Feats like healer and inspiring leader also are not nearly as good if you must wait till level 4 and give up a primary ASI to obtain them.
In short - I think most practical feat issues are because Variant Human exists!
1. Combat feats are generally strong in combination with high stat and multiple combat feats. Variant human greatly speeds up that process. A variant human fighter for example can have all his offensive elements by level 8. A variant human Paladin gets there at level 12. However, if variant human is banned then the fighter takes till level 12 and the paladin till level 16. Those are the levels that most groups won't reach in practice.
2. Other combat feats are used to increase concentration saves. Caster's tend to love these so long as they get them without impacting their stat increases. Without variant human that would generally put casters around level 12 before we would see these kinds of concentration boosting combat feats.
3. Defensive feats like Heavy Armor master aren't nearly as good if you get it near tier 2 as opposed to the start of tier 1.
4. Feats like healer and inspiring leader also are not nearly as good if you must wait till level 4 and give up a primary ASI to obtain them.
In short - I think most practical feat issues are because Variant Human exists!