Bards Bonus Feat Selection

With all the custom songs in Aenea and the limited number of feats that bards get, I am suggesting that bards get a bonus feat every 5 (maybe 6) levels. The bard bonus feat list should include;
Extra Music
Lingering Song
Lasting Inspiration
Curse Song
Air of the Righteous
Ballad of the Wild
Dead Man's March
Freedoms Anthem
Hymn of the Pyre
Melody of the Mundane
Quaking Chorus
Somnific Lullaby
Soothing Refrain
Travellers Chant
Verse of the Vile
and
Winters Carol

This allows a bard to branch out into a few more songs, without completely overpowering the class. The bonus feat progression is on par with those given to a wizard, way less then what a fighter gets for bonuses.. but remains at every 5 levels throughout epic progression too.... ...

If not this, then maybe a new PrC called "Superstar Performer" or something that allows extra bard song feats (from the list above) to be taken at each (other) level... ...

There are 16 possible feats on the bonus list.
I've been thinking on this idea some more and when a bonus feat should be granted... at every 5th level it gives the (pure) bard a total of 8 more feats by 40th. At every 6th level the bard would get 6 more feats.

I happen to think that the bonus feats should be on levels 6, 12, 18, 25, 30, 35, 40. Which totals 7 extra feats (between the other two ideas). 3pre-epic, 4epic for the more dedicated bard. The reason for this is that it follows the standardized performance levels of the bard class much more closely. So as the bard gets stronger with their performances, they also learn a new tune. Note this skips out levels 1,3,9,15 and 20.. on these levels the bard would just get better. (And at Lv1 learns the very first "Bard song" for free anyway).

I also considered adding Epic/Greater/Skill Focus(Perform) to the list, but I think it wouldn't fit, thematically. The idea here is for the bard to improve their songs, and while yes this would do that, I just see those as more "character choices" to make, not "bonuses of class". These bonus feats would be songs the bard learns throughout their "natural performing career" (Bonus Feats), not things they have dedicated "personal time to perfect"(normal feats).


I also was thinking of a "Songbook" item. I know there is a holdable off-hand "shield/torch" that looks like a book. Maybe there could be some these of these with Bonus Feat: xxxSongFeatxxx. The reason I'm thinking of the holdable book is that it means a bard could only gain one song at a time through this method. Swapping the books in combat would be a risky adventure (provoking an AOO and possibly cancelling any active song? ).

Even if the bonus feats were just the songs (not even the two song extender feats or extra music), that would allow a great deal more versatility.  As it is right now, a bard CAN get all the songs, but would only have 4 feats left open after that for feat selections, and 4 feats is really not a lot to work with at all.

Is that 4 feats excluding extra music, lasting inspiration and lingering song?

I mean if you were to add those feats in as well would you have 1 feat open or 4 .... because this limits the bard extensively. Does that also include the possible build choice of Human (for the bonus 1st level feat) which could be a key factor of the character build ?

If you wanted to get to 40th with 60 perform, how easy is that to attain with a (bard average) CHA of say 16? (enough to get access to all spell levels), without having to use 3 of those open feat slots to get the Skill Focuses?

I know it is possible to get ALL the song feats, but to make an effective bard I can see most players maybe picking up 6-8 of the 13 custom songs, and even less for any type of multi-class bard (around 3-4)... (allowing feat selection on other things, like more direct combat/defence feats).
I really think that bards should be able to learn an average of 7-10 songs, unless really dedicated to getting all 13.

Excluding.  Bard's get 6 epic bonus feats for a pure class build (for a total of 20, 14 general, plus 6 epic bonus).  Humans would have an extra feat choice on top of that.

For 60 perform, it's actually quite easy now that PCs can enchant +10 skills on various items.  A Bard 40 with maxed perform would only need +14 total item boosts (43 base ranks+3 cha modifier+14 item skill enhancement bonus).  

The reason I didn't place as much emphasis on extra music/lingering song/lasting inspiration is that on a paragon bard build, those three tend to not be as effective/useful as they are for lower number of bard levels in a build.  40 uses of bard song equates to 40 turns of effect, 60 turns with lingering, much more with lasting, or a lasting/lingering combo.  Roughly equivalent to the duration of a turn/caster level duration buff cast by a equal level mage.

7 to 10 songs is a decent number for a dedicated bard, I agree there. So even just following the same bonus feat pattern of wizards, 4 extra bonus feats selecting from song feats in the pre-epic levels would allow for a lot more diversity among epic bard builds.

And those four extra feats could be huge.  Comparing my paragon wizard to paragon sorcerer, the 4 extra bonus feats allows the wizard to grab another epic spell school focus set of feats than the sorc.  Both have the same epic bonus feat progression (six bonus feats).  The wizard also has a third set of school focus feats, so he's pretty much covered the big three that benefit from increased DCs, and he still has room for character diversifying (spent on other caster related feats such as combat casting, mystical insight, ect).

For my part, I think bards would definitely benefit from adjusted bonus feat progression, but I agree with the idea Manny put forward about just having the bonus feats allow more songs. Rusty's point about Bard's learning more songs automatically as they invest levels in the class is extremely thematically appropriate in my opinion. I think of it in a similar way to how Wizards automatically learn two new spells per class level in addition to their caster level improving.

Aenea offer more for Bards to invest in, which is great - but unless they get additional feats to use on the extra songs, it forces painful tradeoff choices.