Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
For a while I was planning "Free half feat at 1st level" or the variant on it "Free half feat at 1st level, but it can't bring your (point buy ability) up to an 18 after racial".See, this is what I'm worried about.
I might avoid this by forcing the players to choose this first-level "bonus feat" from a short list of options. Feats that I have carefully selected for build options and storytelling potential. I'm thinking stuff like Light Armor Master, Ritual Magic, Skilled...the feats that are nobody's first choice, and probably aren't worth a +2 ASI, but would still pretty good to have for certain builds, or to fill in gaps. It's free, after all, so there'd be nothing to complain about.
If I let them pick any feat at 1st level, it would be the only feat they would ever get...and I don't think that would be very popular with my players.
It kept the big combat feats from being on the list, and especially the second one encouraged some character diversity instead of just the top tier feats getting chosen every time.
Another thought, either by itself or with other limitations would be "no two characters take the same feat".