Dungeons & Dragons Playtests Four New Mystic-Themed Subclasses

Dungeons & Dragons has dropped their first Unearthed Arcana playtest of 2026, with four brand-new subclasses being tested. Today, Wizards of the Coast posted a Mystic Subclasses Unearthed Arcana playtest to D&D Beyond, featuring four magic-themed subclasses. The new subclasses include the Warrior of the Mystic Arts Monk subclass, the Oath of the Spellguard Paladin subclass, the Magic Stealer Rogue subclass and the Vestige Patron Warlock subclass.

The Warrior of the Mystic Arts is a spellcasting subclass that grants Monks the ability to cast Sorcerer spells up to 4th level spells. The Oath of the Spellguard is designed with protecting magic-casters in mind, while the Magic Stealer Rogue targets spellcasting and can empower their Sneak Attacks with magic stolen from nearby spellcasters. The Vestige Patron Warlock forms a bond with a dying god, with the god taking on a vestige form as a companion. The Vestige companion grows in power with the spellcaster. Notably, the Vestige Patron draws inspiration from the Binder from past editions of D&D.

There's no indication when or what this new Unearthed Arcana could be related to. There are several Unearthed Arcanas not currently attached to an announced D&D product, although two almost are certainly tied to a Dark Sun sourcebook.

You can check out the subclasses here. Feedback opens for the playtest on January 22nd.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There are many ways to give consequences to parties trying to abuse rest rules without making it a death clock.

And now it's not in the rules no one needs to. So that's a win. You can put in whatever makes sense in the narrative.

 

[Remathilis]

Not really "since inception". There was no "you should have X many encounters per day" in early D&D. None of the old adventures were designed around a particular number of encounters.

Well no, it was. It just didn't explicitly state that. Attrition based games need that sort of design to work. Pitch five PCs against a single encounter and they can go nova on it and rest regardless of edition. I used to play 2e with a DM who loved "single epic battles" and guess what? After a while we could nuke things in a rounds, which lead to the arms race between the DM and players which eventually (after years and a transition to 3.5) lead to the infamous lich battle finale that sidelined several players for the entire fight due to the DM attempting to create a fight that wouldn't end in three rounds.

But any game that measures your resources in per day uses suffers this problem in some way.

 

[Maxperson]

The 2014 guidance confused people to the extent that DMs who have been playing for years and posting on these very forums still don't see that WotC still uses the same guidelines to design Dungeons. Should they have communicated it more clearly? Probably. But if people tend to udnerzhoot the difficulty, then WotC own Dungeons just look cool and challenging, I guess.

I didn't really find the 5e guidance confusing, but it would have been pretty easy to add language explaining that 1) some people don't like that many encounters in a row, so going to an adventuring week would be better to preserve both the balance and not having too many encounters in a short period of game time, 2) you can give fewer, but significantly higher CR encounters to compensate, but that results in swingier combats with the risk that it can much more easily kill or TPK a group. If space was a concern, one less picture would suffice. They added a lot of art.

 

[Maxperson]

Right, which is still part of the math of the Adventure Day.

I don't agree with that. Once you make it one big encounter due to the birds alerting all the other smaller encounters, you've gone from adventuring day math to one much higher and swingier CR combat which is how a lot of groups handle encounters outside of the adventuring day math.

 

[SkidAce]

That's why I'm a fan of the adventuring week. For DMs/players who are inconsistent like that, you can spread out the encounters and see if the party is using resources too quickly or slowly, and when that eventual challenging fight happens(whether the 4th or 8th encounter), the DM can slow or stop further encounters until the long rest.

We still like the adventuring day.

Narrative dictated boss fight, then they ran into a boss fight by trying to take a short cut out of mountain in a direction they hadn't explored.

Another time the cleric cast their most powerful spell (cloudkill) on two CR 1 guards, guarding an entrance. (hint, they coulda used it later...)

 

[Yaarel]

My games solved the problem of the adventuring day.

Depending on the level, there are 15 standard encounters until reaching the next level. Therefore there is only one long rest per level. Each player can choose when to take the long rest benefit. The flavor is a feeling of renewal of hope, rallying, and deep reinvigoration. Everything else is short rests.

So, if 15 encounters happen in the same day, that is fine. If there is only one encounter per month for 15 months, that is fine.

Only what makes sense for the narrative matters.

 

[Maxperson]

We still like the adventuring day.

Narrative dictated boss fight, then they ran into a boss fight by trying to take a short cut out of mountain in a direction they hadn't explored.

Another time the cleric cast their most powerful spell (cloudkill) on two CR 1 guards, guarding an entrance. (hint, they coulda used it later...)

That seems like overkill...overcloudkill?

Did they know that those guards were that weak?

 

[SkidAce]

That seems like overkill...overcloudkill?

Did they know that those guards were that weak?

They did not. The cleric's response was "Better safe than sorry"

 

[Parmandur]

Putting every adventure on a death clock gets old real quick

Not necessarily, but it does not always have to be so dire. Most people will respond to a light push to keep going.

And it gets to the root of the problem with the concept - it's restricts the ability to tell stories, which is actually D&Ds biggest selling point

I mean, it does not because it is a maximum. The game really signs when players are pushed to he max, but it perfectly fun when they are not. Win, win.

Also, I've noticed that when there is a countdown of this sort the players will always try to stealth to the end. They don't want to waste time fighting minions when the town needs saving, they will rush straight for the boss (lots of recon tools in 5e)

I mean, if they are having fun...good?

It's certainly not tactical combat, there are games that do that much much better.

Tactical, no. Action, yes. 5E let's players be Legolas combined with John Wick.

 

[Parmandur]

Really, people here think adventure writers do complex maths to work out what to put in an adventure?! They never have done anything of the sort.

Complex math, no. The simple guidelines from the 2014 DMG, yes, absolutely they do all the time.