Monks and/or Bards in Microlite78?

I'm pleased to report that I have made more progress on Microlite78: First Edition Lite. Over the last few days, I've added rules for retainers (hirelings, henchmen, mercenaries, and specialists) as well as a number of optional rules including rules for fire-and-forget magic, traditional saving throws, item saves, and psionics. I've made a number of other minor changes and improvements as well. I've made Draft 0.3 available for download by RetroRoleplaying Cancer Fund donors (who have the password needed to unlock these zip files). The Draft 0.3 file can be found in the download area of the RetroRoleplaying Forum. Here are direct links to the download page:

• Microlite78 Draft 0.3

If you would like access, you can make a donation to the RetroRoleplaying Cancer Fund -- or you can wait for the first beta version which should be available near the end of February (unless something else goes wrong in real life) and will be available to everyone.

At the moment, I am not including two classes which were included in the First Edition of the world's most popular fantasy RPG: the monk and the bard. I have not included the monk because I never felt the monk really belonged in the standard "European" version of the game but rather should be reserved for an oriental setting. I haven't included the bard because First Edition bard was insane. One had to go though at least 5 levels as a fighter, then become a thief for at least 5 levels then begin as a bard.

Personally, I'd rather leave both of these classes out of Microlite78: First Edition Lite, but I'm willing to listen to good reasons as to why I should include one or both in comments to this posts (either here on the blog or on Google+).