Bards are quite good in PnP, much better than warlocks in my opinion. It's a flexibility thing; when you have as few hps as bards, warlocks or wizards, the party expects more from you than just some killing power. It's crazy how much more useful low level spells like Animate Rope, Feather Fall and Grease are in PnP than they are in PC games (hell, Feather Fall and Animate Rope never even make it in as far as I'm aware of), and bards get great utility spells like that on top of charisma, a ton of class skills and bread 'n' butter spells like various Cure spells and of course, the almighty Dispel Magic. After all, somebody in the group has to have some form of Dispel magic available at all times after a certain point. If you don't your group may as well just paint bullseyes on their asses and present themselves to the tarrasque now and at least make their deaths quick.