I hate bards as a PC class.  Every time I hear about a bard character I think of those damn minstrels who followed Sir Robin around in Monty Python/Holy Grail. Never mind that real medieval bards and skalds were often hardy and handy adventurers, I just don't like 'em.  

I'd love to hear ideas for another class to take their place as a party's "Face Man", someone with good social skills to represent them and speak for them.  Something that could realistically be found in an adventuring party but generic enough to be, well, generic.

My thoughts are:

Cleric/Priest (But I don't want the face man to have to be religious)
Herald (A messenger/diplomat, my personal favorite)
Knight (A noble fighter who has been taught to observe social graces)

What else?

I favor using the bard almost exactly as written.  Use Perform (Oratory) for rousing speeches instead of music, put the guy in a dress and pointy hat, and you have a better Gandalf than the wizard/mage/magic-user class ever was.

Paladin. All of his abilities rely on CHA, plus, he's entirely dedicated to his cause. He's an easy pic as group leader/face.

Quote from: KrakaJakPaladin. All of his abilities rely on CHA, plus, he's entirely dedicated to his cause. He's an easy pic as group leader/face.

That's a good choice, although I should say I'm not thinking specifically of D&D, just generic fantasy.

A thief/rogue with a high 'charisma' (or whatever) and social skills seems like the most obvious option.

(FWIW, the 'bard' class in C&C is effectively a 'skald'; he is very combat oriented, casts no spells, but has lots of social skills, and can 'inspire', etc.  The class could easily be tweaked to get a 'face man' PC: e.g. Fiendish Doc Samsara's PC 'Lord Xil' from the PBP game that we played together over at RPGnet.)

Yeah, a rogue as Swashbuckler is another good one.
 
Also, don't forget the Noble. He's got the higher up connections and attention grabbing style.