D&D 5E No first level feats except for Human?

[Steely Dan]

It's not quite balanced, but you could let others races give up all ability score increases to grab a Feat.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You're really comparing goblins to kobolds here. Feats in this edition are "superheats" each including the abilities of 2-3 feats in 3.5. There's nothing that needs fixing.

Having now seen the Feats, this doesn't appear to actually be true.

It was easy to argue with the October playtest Feats that this was true, which you'd seriously get a bundle of abilities and often associated proficiencies and so on.

With the final Feats, though? Mmmm, not really. Some are definitely "superfeats", but the majority are really not that great.

I mean, sure, we can claim anything is worth "2-3 feats in 3.5E", because the value of Feats in 3.5E also varied fantastically, from the super-corner-case-near-worthless to the "OMG BASICALLY +1 to X and Y all the time!", so I don't think that means much.

Comparing Goblins to Kobolds is pretty apt, though. They're both pretty weak low-level monsters, and whilst slightly different, neither is drastically more powerful than the other. Certainly if you're suggesting that letting all PCs have a free Feat at L1 in 5E will damage or unbalance the game (and I don't know that you are, so apologies for mentioning it in the context of your post if not!), then yeah, no, that's not going to happen. If a DM wants to give out a free Feat at L1 in 5E, he's completely safe to do so. It won't break the game. It won't horrify the players. Nothing will explode, nothing will catch fire. The real "power difference" between his PCs and PCs in any other game will likely be completely occluded by any power difference that comes from what magic items they have/don't have very rapidly.

So I say to the OP, if you have experienced players who like Feats, go ahead, give them a free one at L1. It is not going to cause a problem. I'm pretty sure that the only real reasons that PCs don't get them at L1 by default are:

A) They're not in the game by default.

and

B) WotC have gone to the most extreme lengths of any edition to "simplify" L1-3, in the hopes that it will make D&D more accessible (if I am understanding Mearls' comments on the subject correctly).

 

[jodyjohnson]

There are a ton of freebie feats that everyone gets.

Quickdraw, finesse, thrown mastery, two-weapon feat chain (2 attacks with no penalty??!), Precise shot, etc.

Super Dodge.

 

[jgsugden]

Feats (5E) are not feats (4E or 3E). You should have no expectations for them.

If you feel that a feat is necessary for a character concept, and that the character concept must be realizable for the 12 to 24 hours of role playing it takes to get to 4th level, it is easy enough to give them a feat at 1st level, give them a minor disadvantage to offset the feat and then reverse it out once they get to 4th level in one class by eliminating the disadvantage rather than giving them a +2/feat at 4th.