Sacred Haven of Debauchery

In all versions of Hellfire that I played, the Bard was always available, but the Barbarian never was.

It should be. I had the disc (maybe even a licensed copy), and it had five characters right from the start.

What the heck. Assassin = Bard? You guys are crazy.

Here's a link to Wikipedia - Diablo, as you can see, the Bard (not Assassin, but Bard!), is a secret character, so it's the pirates, the pirates, and again the pirates. They simply announced the Bard and then cut him, so more people knew about him than about the unannounced Barbarian. Although, adding both of them wouldn't be a problem.

What's so overpowered about the Bard?

He attacks with two hands - monsters flinch and don't have time to attack.

That's not true, the Paladin would have helped for free. Although, in this case, he wouldn't help the bad guy. They help when a good deed needs to be done, not to harm someone.

Well, I'll say this: it depends on who's roleplaying and according to what rules. I remember one D&D 2 campaign (yes, it was a long time ago). So, there was a Paladin who was completely insane, a stupid, good-natured, overpowered conservative (and that's how most players portray Paladins). And this guy is walking down the road, and the local Lord of Evil and Darkness is running away from a crowd of angry people who are about to beat him up. The Lord, seeing the Paladin, puts on an innocent face and asks him to protect him, saying, "noble knight." The Paladin, seeing the injustice, one against a hundred and a half, plus he was asked to protect him, activates justice and mercy mode and cuts all the townspeople to pieces. The Lord thanks him, wants to reward him, but the Paladin refuses, saying that he acted according to his faith, protected the weak and innocent, and they parted ways. Half an hour later, the Paladin finds out that it was the Lord of Evil and Darkness, finds him, cuts him to pieces, and continues on his way, not even batting an eye! Because he protected the weak from the crowd, restoring justice, because 1 vs 150-200 is unfair, and secondly, he killed the Lord of Evil and Darkness. As a result, he's a GOOD GUY, he got experience, and he didn't receive any penalties. Game Over.