I'm partial to bards myself - wasn't sure what I wanted to play the first time, so I settled on a (regular) bard - ended up really enjoying the class. Sort of a 'general practitioner'. You can cast mage spells (up to level 6 spells, which isn't bad) and assist your primary mage; at the same time, you can eventually be a decent secondary fighter (you have a good selection of weapon proficiencies for a non-fighter - I chose Flail
because no other NPC's are really proficient in flail); bards are excellent pickpockets (if you don't have an ethical problem with that); and they are pretty much able to identify ANY unknown item after around, what, level 10 or so - one thing a fighter/mage/thief can't do...although the importance of being able to ID items so readily is debatable, it sure is a nice luxury - frees up your spell memorization slots for more attack spells.
*speaking of which, hope you were able to get those mage spells working*