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.

 

[Parmandur]

They don't. It been nine years since the Death Curse.

And the only adventures published so far for the 2024 rules are in the FR book, aren't possible to run with a long encounter day.

Dragon Delves come out in 2025, for use with the new book, and has fully stocked Dungeons. That book is written by the current designers.

One can, in fact, look to any Adventure book WotC publishes and find dungeons that are still stocked according to 2014 guidelines. 3-4 Hard Encounters for a given Level also work, recall.

 

[Parmandur]

They don't. It been nine years since the Death Curse.

And the only adventures published so far for the 2024 rules are in the FR book, and simply aren't possible to run with a long encounter day.

Here is a recent published example of a 13 room Dungeon from Dragon Delves, with 8 combat Enocounters, and a plot based time pressure to get through it:

• 3 "Parrots" (Raven stat block from MM)
• 6 Pirates and 1 Giant Crocodile
• 1 Tough and 2 Gricks (the Tough is open to negotiation if the Gricks are beaten first)
• 4 Pirates, 2 Mages, and 1 Assasin
• 3 Darkmantles
• 1 Roper, 6 Piercers, and 1 Cloaker
• 2 Violet Fungus Necrohulks
• 1 Adult Black Dragon (and a Partridge in a Pear Tree, IIRC)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Dragon Delves come out in 2025, for use with the new book, and has fully stocked Dungeons. That book is written by the current designers.

Unless there is some mechanism to prevent the party taking a long rest until they have completed a requisite number of encounters (which the 2024 rules don't specify) it doesn't matter how "fully stocked" the dungeon is. It's just a big dungeon that the party can rest in whenever they like.

 

[Parmandur]

Unless there is some mechanism to prevent the party taking a long rest until they have completed a requisite number of encounters (which the 2024 rules don't specify) it doesn't matter how "fully stocked" the dungeon is. It's just a big dungeon that the party can rest in whenever they like.

In the Dungeon I detailed in the post above, the party has until nightfall to return the MacGuffin the Dragon stole back to town or the town will be wiped out by a magic storm. That is handily enough in my experience to get people to push without a rest.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In the Dungeon I detailed in the post above, the party has until nightfall to return the MacGuffin the Dragon stole back to town or the town will be wiped out by a magic storm. That is handily enough in my experience to get people to push without a rest.

One out of how many?

And I seriously doubt 3 ravens counts as a combat encounter for a party expected to fight an adult black dragon. I don't have that book, but I suspect you counting shows considerable bias.

 

[Parmandur]

One out of how many?

And I seriously doubt 3 ravens counts as a combat encounter for a party expected to fight an adult black dragon. I don't have that book, but I suspect you counting shows considerable bias.

The three Ravens are a minor nuisance, sure. But that is part of the resource attrition, throw some minor encounters in the mix to distract and maybe get a Spell lot used up. There is no bias in the count: the Dungeon has 13 rooms, 8 with keyed combat Encounters. The main danger of the Raven/Parrots is raising an alarm of they are not dealt with swiftly.

The same analysis can apply to most Dungeons WotC publishes, they provide stocked Dungeons with reasonable time pressure to get through them. That is enough for most tables.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

But that is part of the resource attrition,

No it isn’t. If an encounter requires no resources it, by definition, cannot count towards attrition.

And if the parrots raise the alarm, then one can assume the other encounters come running, turning it into one big encounter rather than several small ones.

the Dungeon has 13 rooms,

Is it necessary to encounter all of them before completing the objective? Or can the party dash to the end, complete the objective, then explore any remaining rooms at their leasure? In other words, how many combat encounters are there along the critical path?

 

[GarrettKP]

They don't. It been nine years since the Death Curse.

And the only adventures published so far for the 2024 rules are in the FR book, and simply aren't possible to run with a long encounter day.

This is just wrong.

First, Dragon Delves exists and has multiple dungeons with multiple encounters, some of which are multi-level and takes multiple sessions to run without an easy opportunity to rest (unless your DM just lets you long rest in a room next to a bunch of monsters).

Second, there’s multiple adventures in the FR books that have 4-8 encounters in a single day. The Lost Library starter adventure has a time limit and has two entire floors of multiple encounters to go through, as do adventures like the Tomb of Damara in the Dalelands or Message in a Bottle in the Moonshae Isles.

Some of the adventures in the FR books support single encounter days. But plenty of them use longer adventuring days as a standard.

 

[GarrettKP]

Is it necessary to encounter all of them before completing the objective? Or can the party dash to the end, complete the objective, then explore any remaining rooms at their leasure? In other words, how many combat encounters are there along the critical path?

In that adventure (which I’m currently running in my home game) roughly 6 of the encounters are in the path. It’s not a dungeon with many branching paths. It’s pretty straight through.

 

[Remathilis]

View attachment 427687

To be fair, that's way too long to put on a sign...