The Mage-Tamer is probably the most popular template. Its main advantage is that you can be effective with and without a pet, which is not always the case for other skill sets.

• Stats
  The Mage-Tamer will obviously want strength and intelligence as high as possible for the best chance of survival and spellcasting/mana regeneration, while dexterity is negligible.
• Magery
  This is obviously the essential skill for a Mage. Not only your spellcasting ability is skill based, but also the effectivity of all the skills you cast: not only will the GM Mage have a better chance at successfully casting a flamestrike than a lower level Mage for example, but his will also do more damage. Additional information.
• Evaluating Intelligence (Eval Int)
  This skill basically adds a damage bonus to all offensive spells. The game checks a player's (or creature's) eval int skill against the magic resist of the target and applies a bonus depending on both skill levels. The chance to resist the spell is checked after this calculation. Side note: contrary to a common misconception, eval int does not help your resist and also does not give a bonus on non-offensive spells! Additional information.
• Resisting Spells
  Pretty self explanatory. This skill helps you resist spell damage depending on your skill level compared to your opponent's eval int skill. Additional information.
• Wrestling
  Wrestling decreases the chance of a Mage getting hit (and thus interrupting his attempt to cast a spell) while engaged in combat. For example a Mage with 0 wrestling skill will get interrupted every single time a creature with higher wrestling or weapon skill hits him, even if the opponent does next to no damage. This is especially dangerous in Felucca, where you can not simply push through a crowd of monsters or peopel at any given time. Additional information.

With room for all 3 magery related skills (magery, meditation, eval int) you have the full potential of the Mage combined with the full potential of the Tamer (taming, animal lore, veterinary) and enough skill points left over to either take up wrestling or resist or specialize in some of your skills by using power scrolls.

The drawbacks of this template include poor defensive capabilities if you choose to leave out wrestling and resist. Especially wrestling is absolutely necessary if you want to adventure in Felucca at any point, since there you can not just push through all the monsters and players like in Trammel. Depending on your playstyle and understanding of the game mechanics you might do okay, but I wouldn't recommend it personally.

If you absolutely need to save skill points in order to specialize, I would recommend cutting down on eval int and meditation before considering anything else. With the new control requirements it is not feasible to have less than 100.0 animal lore anymore if you want to control high-end pets reliably, and unless you plan on relying on expendable pets you will need at least a minimum of 80.0 veterinary in order to be able to resurrect them.

Depending on which template you choose for your bardic Tamer, you can be quite effective without pets as well or truly specialize in optimized pet training and combat. Here is a short description of the music related skills and their benefits:

• Stats
  The Bard-Tamer can make a choice between keeping magery (and possibly meditation) as effective as possible with high intelligence or may cut down on intelligence in favor of dexterity for shorter bandage timers with veterinary.
• Musicianship
  An absolute must-have in order to be an effective Bard, anything less than 100.0 in this skill is a waste of time, since below that level it is possible to fail the first of the two required skill checks. Additional Information.
• Discordance
  With publish 16 the enticement skill was converted to discordance. The effect of this skill is that the targeted creature will lose a percentage of its stats and skills, depending on the Bard's proficiency. This skill is difficulty based depending on the barding difficulty of the monster. Additional Information..
• Peacemaking
  Can be used in two different modes, area-based and target-based. The area-based effect is activated by targeting yourself and still works much like before publish 16. The radius of effectivity is based on your peacemaking skill. The target-based mode allows you to target a single creature and "calm" it - which results in a monster you can tame without being attacked (only if it does not use the angering cycle) or kill with only a small chance of it fighting back. This mode is difficulty based depending on the barding difficulty of the monster. More detailed information can be found Additional Information.
• Provocation
  Allows you to provoke creatures to attack each other. Since the publish 16 changes to the bardic profession this skill is not only difficulty based but also a number of other restrictions and special rules apply. Additional Information.

It is pretty obvious that you will not be able to combine the full power of a Bard with the full potential of a Tamer - there are just not enough skill points available on a single character. If the bardic skills are most important to you, I suggest you choose a Bard-Mage over a Bard-Tamer. Still you have two choices: either focus on the bardic aspect and only take up magery, taming and animal lore or pick one bardic skill (discordance, peacemaking or provocation) plus musicianship in addition to a full Tamer template with taming, animal lore and veterinary. This leaves you enough skill points for magery and meditation to keep yourself alive.

From my personal experience, peacemaking is definitely the best complementary skill in a Tamer template, magery aside of course. You can break up and redirect fights on a whim and always have a chance of making a quick escape, saving your pet and yourself from certain death. You can venture into areas other players will have trouble navigating, and last but not least, with high peacemaking skill the target-based option will help you to defeat difficult opponents with only one medium to high level pet. Peacemaking can be used for defensive purposes as well as for offense, while provocation and discordance lack this potential and thus are somewhat one-sided as support skills.

The only drawback to the Peace Tamer template is that it is not very effective in situations where you don't have a pet with you. But after all you're a tamer, no?

If you want to specialize your Bard-Tamer, the suggested skills to save points in are meditation and magery, veterinary would be the last choice. I would definitely not recommend giving up points in animal lore or any bard skill if you want an effective character. Keep in mind that you will not be able to resurect your bonded pets if your veterinary skill is below 80.0.

This is definitely a choice template for people who are looking more for having fun than being highly effective. The lack of magery is possibly the main reason why only very few people enjoy playing a Tamer with weapon skills. The possibility of recalling with bonded pets along with the use of charged runebooks has taken the sting out of a "magery free" template quite a bit. With no base magery skill recall is not reliable for emergency situations, but you can still use it to get around.

• Stats
  The Warrior-Tamer needs high strength and dexterity for maximum weapon proficiency and chance of survival, intelligence is negligible, especially if the template does not include magery. In this case you might even want to drop intelligence to 10.
• AnatomyThis skill is required as a secondary skill for healing in order to cure poison and resurrect, but it also adds a damage bonus of up to 30% at 100.0 to your weapon's damage potential. Additional Information.
• Healing
  Absolutely required to keep yourself alive. You can't really play a character that uses a weapon skill effectively if you want to rely on healing through magery since you have to unequip your weapon to cast a spell. Additional Information.
• Weapon skill of choice
  The core complementary skill for this template, your defense and damage potential when adventuring without a pet. Which weapon skill you choose is completely up to you and depends if you prefer a ranged attack or close combat. Archery is the traditional skill for the Ranger, but mace fighting also fits nicely - it supports staves, and a quarter staff just looks very "in character" on a tamer. Of course fencing and swordsmanship are also possible.
• Tactics
  The sole purpose of the tactics skill is functioning as a damage modifier, increasing the damage you can inflict with your weapon. Without any tactics skill, you will only be doing 50% of the base damage possible (without added anatomy bonus). Additional Information.

The variety of required skills to keep yourself and your pets alive as well as those needed to effectively wield a weapon are quite a challenge to squeeze into 700 skill points and make specialization nearly impossible. Nevertheless, if you decide to go with this template, I assure you that you will have a lot of fun. High dexterity means an extremely short bandage timer (about 3 seconds per bandage at 100 dex) for your veterinary healing and will allow you to take on high-end monsters just as well as a Mage-Tamer or Bard-Tamer.

The drawbacks include a longer bandage timer for healing yourself (about 10 seconds at 100 dex), which you can efficiently support with greater heal and cure potions, the fact that you can only apply a bandage to either yourself, another person or a pet at one time, the inability to use gate travel, having to rely on charged runebooks to recall and a very high maintenance requirement for all your weapons, armor and arrows/bolts if you choose archery.

The hybrid suggestion for the warrior tamer is also an excellent way to start out and gradually "wean" yourself from the use of magery as a supportive skill as you learn to play without it. As long as you are raising your taming skill you might want to consider to keep some magery so you have an easier time of travelling between taming areas.