I played a 3.0 bard. Human bard 6, improved initiative, MWP (lance), Mounted Combat, Ride by Attack. He was the paladin's squire. he generally wore padded armor, which meant 5% ASF and low AC, but he carried around a mail shirt for occasions. In actually, he surfaced as a vital party member, using his diplomacy and fascinate abilities to good effect, summoning small creatures in combat to harass opponents, and most memorably, using mirror image to turn himself into a formidable melee opponent. he landed the killing blow on a young adult blue dragon, in a battle that killed all but one of his fellow PCs (who was unconcious) and all their NPC allies, and had armor made from its hide. The whole thing started as a kind of joke, a sort of Sancho Panza as played by Eric Idle, but he ended up becoming the hero of the story, so to speak.
EDIT: Oh, and I almost forget his immediate predecessor in the campaign. He was a Cha 6 half-elf wizard. Dressed in fur-trimmed garments, covered in the droppings of his falcon familiar and carrying a battle axe, he was invariably mistaken for a ranger. He was famous for his awesomely acidic manner of speaking, and alienated every single NPC he every spoke to or near. Despite being down MWP (battle axe) and Toughness, or perhaps because of it, he was a formidable evoker.
