The bard has Open Lock/Disable Device and the crafting skills as cross-class skills, making them twice as expensive to purchase. However, you can pick up a rogue companion early in the game, so I wouldn't worry too much about that if you really want one. As a bard you can heal wounds and cure poison, but not disease or curses.
As I said above, picking a bard character will be decent at playing the role of just about any other class. However, in every single area, almost any of your companions will be better at any one thing than your character. Not to mention, your spells known list will be limited, so you will have to focus on two or three types of spells for your character to have. If you wanted to play a character that can step into a bad situation and replace another when one of your characters falls, then this would be a good choice for that. Yet, you'll want to keep in mind that you will be slow in getting spells, average at fighting, and sneaky without the ability to deal with traps and locks while lacking the rogues special abilities.
There are ways to turn a bard into a good and self-sufficient fighter. However, I wouldn't expect to start seeing a true shifting from mediocre to good until after 9th level as a straight bard when you can get the ability to use a few 3rd level spells, like Haste, along with some other spells to improve your chances to hit and damage.
As a role-playing character, this would be a great choice for what you want. If that's what you really want, I say test it out and see how it works. I have restarted more times than I can count now to see what character I feel like playing through the game all the way through most with.
