1. Well my battlemage was close combat one hand + shield. I used fire only with him. Made him resistant to fire, then rush to enemies, cast fireball or self immolation. I put points into INT and STR, then CON and SPD. End game stats were like 15STR, 14INT, 14CON, 12SPD. Gear helps a lot. I had about 3 STR, 2INT, some CON and SPD/PER. I never save/load for gear.

2. I had Glass Cannon, Know it all, Far out man, the one where I was immune to stun,weather effects,stand your ground. Know it all raise INT by 1, dont know if it raise max int, as I never hit the max.

3.Dont know about that. My Madora had 19 in STR I think. My main caster had 17 in INT. But last time I played was 2 weeks ago, so the numbers are not exact.