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.

 

[Davy Greenwind]

Agreed. And, the vestiges were exactly that - vestiges. They were echoes of incredibly powerful beings but, not actual beings in their own right.

But, the big part of Binders is that you accessed ALL the vestiges and the vestige that you accessed at a given time changed how your character worked as well as potentially changing how you acted. Plus, as a way to keep balance, they made it so that some vestiges hated others and wouldn't bind with them. It was absolutely, hands down, my favorite class and this is not a binder.

This is a Circle of Wildfire druid with a new coat of paint. There is pretty much nothing to distinguish this from Circle of Wildfire.

(edit - lol never mind, you already know about MHP)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Clearly the Horror subclasses UA was for a book everyone is REALLY clamoring for: Ghostwalk.

The Necromancer is clearly really clamouring for the PHB.

They no more "horror" than this lot are "mystic". The bard subclass is a storyteller, the necromancer is a core subclass, the Reanimator will be needed to go with the reprinting of artificer as something not Eberron exclusive, the ranger subclass is generic and the undead patron warlock will be in the Ravenloft adventure.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It occurs to me that Chain Pact, by itself, is perfectly fine. Spend an invocation, get a better than standard familiar. Very worthwhile use of an invocation slot. It's Invocation of the Chain Master than fails. It tries to turn the familiar into an ongoing combat pet, but with a static non-scaling stat block it quickly fades into irrelevance. The damage isn't nothing but the HP and attack bonus are crippling.

So while a Vestige Warlock would have to go to extreme and inefficient lengths to combine the Vestige Companion with Chain Master, just Chain Pact by itself would have no issue. One tiny familiar for scouting and Help actions, one larger companion for combat. And two pets is just cool, even if they're doing different things.

You could add a bit of text: "your patron counts as a familiar for Chainmaster invocations."

 

[Mephista]

nvm

 

[Davy Greenwind]

The rogue might be the best theme of all, and, contrary to what the Beyond page says, I don't see to what previous class it's supposed to be a callback? Someone knows? I guess 3E?

It's loosely based on the Spellthief, from 3e.

 

[Charlaquin]

A vestige is dead.
A vestige is gone.
A vestige is donzo.

A binder or vestige warlock is making a pact with the residual energy around the vestige and the imprinted memory of the vestige.

It's like if you bind with Alexander the Great. He is dead. Dead Dead. You bind with his remnants of energy to lead armies and ride horses.

You bing with Julius Ceasar. You get martial command and a huge hatred of backstabbers. There is to returning Ceaser to power.

The death god Raven Queen killed and replaced? He's DEAD. You are tapped into his corpse. The god of death is the RQ now.

Some Vestiges listed in 3e were Ashardalon (a really powerful Red Dragon), Astaroth, Acererak (the Tomb of Horrors Lich), Kas (the vampire rival of Vecna), Gaia, Geryon, Karsus, Primus (or at least a remnant of a previous top Modron) and Teneborous (the identity Orcus assumed after he was slain). Some of vestiges do encroach on Great Old Ones, Fiends and (fallen) Celestials.

I’m having trouble reconciling these two statements about Vestiges. Aren’t all of these examples of Vestiges alive? Any Binder stans able to help clarify this for me?

 

[Charlaquin]

I never thought I'd see Miku Binder Thomas Jefferson on Enworld.org this morning!

New headcanon: the OC depicted is a Binder, who Bound the Vestige of actual Thomas Jefferson

 

[Charlaquin]

Frankly, I suspect it has more to do with TP's Small Gods and the common understanding of the English word "vestige" than any obscure 3rd edition class.

Also, the term Vestige already has a specific meaning within 5e canon. The entities trapped inside the amber sarcophagi in Curse of Strahd and Van Richten’s guide are Vestiges. They’re depicted as remnants of “dead” gods, but in this case them being “dead” mostly means they have gone dormant, but could theoretically be restored to power, should enough mortals devote worship to them again.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The vestige patron is going to be setting dependant fluff-wise in any case. Eberron’s gods are (possibly) not real, so there can’t be any dead ones, and and in Dark Sun all the gods are long dead. Not that it’s hard to tweak the fluff to fit the setting, but we know how some people are about that.

 

[Mephista]

I’m having trouble reconciling these two statements about Vestiges. Aren’t all of these examples of Vestiges alive? Any Binder stans able to help clarify this for me?

So, here's the thing about 3e's Vestiges. They basically didn't exist. It's not that they were dead, its that they somehow slipped out of reality and into a weird limbo-non-state.

For example, one of them was based on buddhist monk that managed to escape the cycle of life and death... but made an oopsie and ended up as a technically-non-existant-vestige instead of dying. They just vanished and turned into a Vestige.

Teneborous was being treated as a separate entity than Orcus, even though he was a divine form of Orcus. Once that divinity was stripped, Orcus returned and the remnants of that divinity formed into a pseudo-spirit non-existence.

Kas is weird, because his status changes depending on the edition. Vecna and he both ended up in Ravenloft at one point, but Vecna escaped and became a god - no word on what happened to Kas's domain. 3e made him into a Vestige, but 4e came back and said, no, he's alive and existing. Just an edition change quirk.

3e made vestiges primarily because the writers wanted something that would let you mix and match summons without needing to worry about the stigma of being a devil summoner or a ghost-caller, and the like. Vestiges were very specifically made to not interact with the rest of D&D cosmology. So, you ended up with a lot of stuff that referenced various bits of the real world as a joke, or some old D&D lore. It didn't really matter a ton if it contradicted other established bits of lore, because vestiges were all a self-contained sandbox.

Note that all this is incompatible with how 4e did Vestiges, which were just super-ghosts from a specific human kingdom drawn from the Points-of-Light setting. Or Critical Role's use of vestiges as a kind of magical item. I'm also fairly sure this is not the first time that 5e used "vestige" to refer to dead gods. Don't remember where it came up before though.