Character Auto Following Main Character

Some fellow classmates and I are creating a game where there are 2 characters and the second character will follow behind the main character like a snake, e.g. from games such as WoW and Dragon Age auto-follow feature. I want the character to imitate everything including jumping, but as I stated, lagging a few paces behind. I can get the character to jump and animate using the third person controllers for both and even get a rigid follow using the Camera>Smooth Follow script but like I said, it makes it stiff and too rigid, making the following character stay at a set position behind the main character controller and not follow the footsteps. I hope I described what I was trying to well enough for everyone to understand.