Strength actually doesn't do that much in these games. The difference between 15 and 18 Strength is only 3 points per hit, and I believe anything lower than 15 is no worse than 15.

I don't remember that bug in the 2GS version included with the action game from the 2000s, so it probably is only present in the version that runs under an OS, if present at all.

In the Amiga versions of BT1 and BT2, Fighters do not get extra attacks from leveling up, but Bards do, so there the Fighter is useless (without the Stoneblade, that is). Amiga BT3, I believe, doesn't have this bug, but from my understanding it's about as buggy as the DOS version, meaning it's buggy to the point of being not that fun to play. (Avoid the DOS and Amiga versions of BT3 at all costs; they're the worst version, though it appears there exists a fan patch that fixes the DOS version.)

Bards aren't good at fighting because they don't get extra attacks, putting them way behind Fighter and Paladin in properly functioning versions (that is, not the Amiga versions of 1 and 2).

Rogues don't have returning weapons in (classic) BT1, as thrown weapons don't exist there.

True in BT1, but then again, so could Warrior (again, assuming proper functioning here) and Paladin.

Not true in BT2, as enemy HP really shoots up later in the game. At reasonable levels, the Sword of Zar outdamages it, and even if you level up into the triple digits, I believe the Monk's average damage doesn't even reach 1000, when Destiny Stone enemies can have over 4,000 HP. At this point in the game, in order to be able to kill enemies in a reasonable amount of time, you need to either be using a Hunter, using a Stoneblade, or casting Death Strike (or just use Spell Bind to turn enemies into powerful allies; there's even one particular enemy that does nothing but cast Mangar's Mallet, which isn't as devastating as it sounds; enemies have too many HP to be killed with just a few of them, and party member saving throws are too good).

More true in BT3, where doing 2000+ damage is now the norm for Monks, but falls apart in the final dimension, when there are enemies with 5 digit HP. (With that said, in the remaster, with the help of a couple bard songs and Divine Intervention, you can easily reach 5 digit damage IIRC and start one hit killing even endgame enemies. Speaking of the remaster, BT2 remaster Monks are good.)

The version I played was the version sold by Big Red Computer Club that ran under GS/OS.
The version that was distributed with the early 2000 action-adventure was one that ran under ProDOS 8 instead.
My version didn't let you transfer characters, which was VERY annoying.
Only Bard's Tale II had the fighter bug where level 35 warriors and paladins did less than 50 damage per round even if they hit 4+ times. Oh, and using stone blades, death daggers, spectre snare or other weapons with instant kill effects were absolutely vital in BT2.
The fighter bug did not happen in BT1, where warriors and paladins were viable throughout the game, but I still took a monk mostly as a pack mule. My party would be (NOT in marching order) Bard, Rogue, Conjurer, Magician, Monk, and a choice of warrior or paladin. I didn't find the hunter useful until the second game as he was generally too unreliable. In the second game it was (in order) monk, hunter, bard, rogue, conjurer, magician.

Bard's Tale III was never released for the Apple IIGS, and so I wound up playing the Apple IIe version 5 years after getting BT1. That's why the action-adventure BT game's BT3 has such inferior graphics and sound compared to the first two.
Warriors and paladins were unnerfed, but the problems after the intro dungeon were as noted that enemy HP would rise. I still used a monk as a pack mule, but took a warrior or paladin to turn into a geomancer and one of my other mages was turned into a chronomancer.
I didn't play BT3 as much because after the IIGS version the inferior graphics & sound made me like the IIe version less. This was one of the only times that the graphics & sound went DOWN in the later game. Although I'm aware that if I'd played the IIe versions of the first two I probably would have enjoyed BT3 just as much. I hate how shallow that makes me, but honestly the graphics and sound didn't get good enough that I no longer care about quality until the end of the '90s. Honestly the difference between Baldur's Gate I and Pathfinder:King Maker, or Neverwinter Nights and Pillars of Eternity isn't enough for me to care anymore.

They're also essential in BT3, at least for characters who aren't Hunters or Rogues. Except that, as it turns out, those weapons don't work properly in the DOS and Amiga versions of BT3; one of the many reasons why those versions are bad. (Perhaps more significant, however, is that monster attacks that cause status ailments don't work at all, and monsters never use their breath weapons; this applies both to enemies and to monster party members.)

Also, Death Daggers don't exist in classic BT2, and I'm not aware of them being obtainable without hacking in any classic BT1 version. (They do exist and are available in the remaster, however.)

It is this version that I have not been able to locate. The only versions of BT2 I've played are the ProDOS version, the MS-DOS version (a few bugs, like having things get dark after stopping the wrong bard song, and being able to regenerate SP when already at maximum), and I tried out the Commodore 64 version (monster party members will not use their spells or breath attacks if there are enemies alive, and I hear there's severe accuracy issues later on).

Attached is an interesting screenshot I took from the ProDOS version of Bard's Tale 2.

BT2 DOS does have one annoying bug regarding hunters. As you may know, the hunter's critical chance increases at level up. What you may not realize, however, is that this chance is stored in the character's data file, and there's some randomness involved in its growth. That bit, so far, isn't a bug.

However, in BT2 DOS, this value is stored in a single byte, with 255 being, I believe, over 99% critical chance. The bug is that the game doesn't check for overflow, so if you level up, there's a chance the character's critical rate will overflow and become small again. There are two ways to deal with this bug, if playing this version:
* Once critical hits become reliable, save before each hunter level up. After leveling up, get into a fight, then have the hunter attack a few times. If you're still getting consistent criticals, you can save, but otherwise you should reload and never level up the hunter again.
* Or, create the hunter in DOS BT1, level them up until stats are maxed, and then transfer to BT2. BT1 actually properly checks for overflow and prevents it, so you don't need to worry about this here.

There's a similar bug with Rogues, but I believe there's other bugs that make them useless anyway. Hence, this only matters if you transfer the character to BT3, at which point you can see an indication of these hidden values (but remember that the DOS version of BT3 is bad).

Once you get a mage staff, rogues become far less important as you can afford to cast TRZP on every chest, and you can use the party fight to regenerate spell points.
So in BT1 & 2, plus the first time I played BT3, I would drop the rogue in favor of another class once I had mage staffs for all my mages.
I had a macro program called "El Macro" (IIRC it can be found on the now-defunct Caltech FTP site but it's mirrored here: https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/apple2.caltech.edu/addons/cda/ ) that made the game less tedious.
I had preset macros for regenerating with a mage staff, or just letting my pet creature use it's breath weapon while the party defended. I'd hit a key sequence and it would automatically input FDDDHDD. Just keep spamming that until the mage has recovered enough SP.
I also had FAAAAAAHDD FABABABHDD for standard attacks. I liked to keep a pet with a breath weapon, especially in the first game with a special slot. Plus enemies almost never disbelieved in BT1, so the red dragon summoned by the sorcerer was extremely powerful and useful (while I found WIWA useless as it could be routinely 1-hit KO by the enemies in town in the daylight.).

So the point was that Rogues becomes almost useless later in the game, which is why the third game added the backstab ability to hide in the shadows.

The remaster also addressed some of these issues.
* The backstab ability was given to Rogues in all three games (along with the ability to identify items, even if that's not as important in BT1 and BT2).
* Disarming of traps without the spell was simplified, so there's no longer a time advanatage to using TRZP over having the Rogue disarm the trap. In fact, if the Rogue is good enough for the area difficulty you're in, the disarming is automatic, so you don't even need to input any commands! (It's also automatic if you play that one BT2 song (also available in remastered BT3) that protects you from traps) outside of combat.)
* Worth noting that TRZP no longer works in anti-magic areas, so you're going to want a Rogue or Bard if you're going to open treasures in that Grey Crypt.
* On the other hand, SP regeneration is noticeably faster in the remaster, and it's *really* fast if you're on an SP regen square. In fact, it's so much faster that I consider it reasonable to play through the BT3 remaster without ever using any Harmonic Gems (which are still there and common if you need them).

By the way, in the Apple 2 and C64 versions of BT3, Harmonic Gems become really common in some of the later worlds. I've had battles where I'd get a Harnomic Gem to drop, along with an item that turned out to be another Harmonic Gem. Or, to use another metric, I could have my casters use DIVA and NUKE all the time, using a Harmonic Gem when SP runs low, and still get them faster than I use them up. It was quite ridiculous.

Yes, that Red Dragon is *really* powerfui in BT1. (Was toned down for later games; along with enemies having higher HP, I haven't found it that useful, but at least its level was lowered from 6 to 4.)

The Demon Lord summon that a high level Wizard could cast has an even *more* powerful breath weapon it can use. Problem is that the DOS version has a bug that makes it impossible for a Demon Lord in the party's special slot to actually use that breath attack; it's still devastating if an enemy hits you with it, and it does work in the 2GS version.

In BT2, there's one monster found on the final level of the Destiny Stone that will cast Mangar's Mallet every round at no cost. This is incredibly useful, even if enemies can routinely survive multiple casts at this point. Sometimes, I would sneak into the Destiny Stone, get that far, recruit such a monster, then go back to the Guild to save the monster to disk. (The ability to save monsters to disk is one of my favorite aspects of BT2 and BT3, and it's incredibly disappointing that the remaster doesn't allow that.)

One interesting thing about the remaster: Monster party members will not try to use summons or physical attacks if they can't due to a full party or being in the back row. This means that you could force, say, that Demon Lord to breathe every single round by putting it in the back, and I believe the Scathe Mage (from Destiny Stone level 1) could be used as a more easily obtainable Mangar's Mallet spammer. (In fact, if you got lucky, you might get one of them to offer to join your party.) Also, such party members don't take a share of the XP, so in BT2 remaster, you can quickly level up a single character by having them go into a dungeon with a bunch of monsters capable of clearing the enemies. (Also works for BT1 and BT3 remaster, but in BT3 remaster, abusing enemies that call for help is a *far* better approach, allowing you to get more than a full level's worth of XP from one fight later in the game.)