[Bungleau]

Welcome back into the swing of things, WYZZ! It's good to see you back here!

To respond to your questions...

Your magic users gain the skills of the new class while potentially losing things from their old class. Switching to bard gives you thieves guild access, moon spells, and the music skill (among other things). What you lose is the ability to learn high-level sun, stone, spirit, or vine spells (depending on your class). I recommend you stay in your original magic class long enough to get the level 7 spells, especially in Stone. Sun, spirit, and vine are native spell schools for other classes, so you'll be able to pick those up later.

Climbing down a ladder.... ya know, that's the most common question after "how do I get into the crypt".

The real answer: you have to look down the ladder and walk forward or backward, and then you'll climb down.

The practical answer: more than half the time you're going to fall anyway, so just yell "Geronimooooooooo!" and jump. You only take 1-2 points of damage, which heals up fairly quickly.