Deep dive into the latest playtest subclasses for D&D 2024.
Christmas may feel like a fleeting memory, but we’re barely half way into the first month of 2026 and Wizards of the Coast have already released their latest Unearthed Arcana. This time, we get 4 mystic subclasses, each able to wield, counter, steal or bargain with magic.
As usual, I’ve put together a deep dive into these playtest options to see how well they fare and whether they stack up quality-wise.
What’s included in the playtest?
The playtest comes with 4 brand new subclasses. They are:
- Monk: Warrior of the mystic arts
- Paladin: Oath of the spellguard
- Rogue: Magic stealer
- Warlock: Vestige Patron
If you want to check out the full playtest material, you can find it all here. Just remember that this is playtest material and will likely change before we get the final version.
Monk: Warrior of the Mystic Arts
What is it?
These monks are able to harness supernatural and magical powers to complement their martial prowess. They are 1/3 casters similar to the eldritch knight and the arcane trickster.
Are they any good?
Spellcasting grants versatility
Mystic arts monks have spellcasting, like eldritch knights and arcane tricksters. This obviously grants them a lot of versatility and is a powerful feature. Having said that, they are not as versatile as either of these subclasses for the simple reason that they draw from the sorcerer’s spell list rather than the wizard’s. Sorcerers have access to very few spells that wizards don’t, whereas wizards have many spells that sorcerers don’t have access to.
This isn’t a critique. This remains a powerful feature, but it’s worth being aware of that particular limitation.
Trading spell slots and focus points is uneven
You can trade spell slots for focus points and vice versa. But this process is uneven. It’s 1 focus points for every level of spells slots, but reversing this costs 2+ focus points for every spell slot. This makes it feel like converting spell slots into focus points means getting short-changed. I guess the spell slots recovered from focus points kind of feels fair though and I suppose there’s adaptability here.
Combine spellcasting with attacks
You can replace one of your attacks with the casting of a cantrip, much like eldritch knights can. This will often be optimal because cantrips on their own scale as you level up making them usually superior to a single attack (but often not to multiple attacks). I’d use this most of the time and there’s a few interesting options like true strike and thunderclap here too.
Improved concentration is great for martial casters
Concentration can be difficult to maintain in the thick of combat. At level 11 this is addressed by giving you advantage on concentration saving throws when using options from the monk’s focus feature. This is likely to happen a lot so is fairly reliable, though that somewhat depends on how much your monk is casting concentration spells.
Improved mystic fighting style literally does nothing
This is supposed to be like the eldritch knight’s ability to weave higher level spells with attacks, but monks only get 2 attacks with the attack action so replacing them with a level 1 or 2 spell has the exact same effect as just casting a level 1 or 2 spell. Which is a real shame as the subclass was doing so well up until this point.
Verdict
The warrior of the mystic arts feels like a copy and paste of the eldritch knight onto a monk body. This is so much the case that they even seem to have copied and pasted a feature that only works with a fighter! This is a real shame as the subclass was shaping up nicely.
While very similar to the eldritch knight in execution, this is a workable magical monk. With wisdom being their forte anyway, spellcasting should be pretty good and a little fix to that level 17 feature and we should have a solid martial caster on our hands.
4/5
Paladin: Oath of the spellguard
What is it?
Paladins that swear an oath to protect others from magic used for evil purposes. They are not against magic, and even use it for their own pure purposes, but are trained to oppose it.
Are they any good?
Guardian bond may be tricky to pull off
Guardian bond seems really strong and for most paladins, that’s a 3-5AC boost once per round, potentially over multiple encounters. However, I think it could be tricky. Part of the problem is that the ally must stay in reach. For most characters, that means being within 5ft of the target. That on its own is tricky and likely means protecting another martial.
The other issue though, is that by being next to each other, you have the same enemies who are likely going to attack you rather than your bonded ally with the better AC now. That’s fine if you’re protecting a weaker ally like a wizard or even a monk, but staying on the frontlines together likely means you’re protecting another tank like a barbarian or a fighter which may not be helping much here. I think this may be worse in practice than it seems.
Anti-magic and defensive caster
Spellguards have a lot of anti-magic and defensive spells. These are often great and some I can see being used a lot (like shield, counterspell and dispel magic) while others have a rarer need, but are important when the opportunity arises (like see invisibility).
One challenge will be managing spell slots. Paladins are quite spell slot hungry. Smites can easily be used each turn while attacking whereas spells like counterspell and shield can easily be used each round as a reaction as well. The challenge will be maintaining offensive and defensive capabilities through your spell slots.
Spellguard strike is situationally great, but another demand on your reaction
Spellguards will really want to be getting in close and personal with spellcasters to ensure they’re grabbing reactive strikes. There are enough spellcasters in the game that this can be used enough, but it is technically situational.
However, you now have a huge amount of options resting on your reaction. Just at level 3, guardian bond relies on this, as does spellguard strike and then you have the shield spell too. Once you hit level 9, there’s also counterspell. Outside of your subclass, you’ve also got opportunity attacks. The reality is you can only use 1 of these per round leaving multiple options unused.
If you reach level 15, this is somewhat mitigated with spellguard strike and counterspell being used with the same reaction (but you couldn’t do this separately for 2 different spells being cast).
I think that based on both these features, that spellguard strike occurs as the spell is cast, not after. This is because you can cast counterspell after the strike and prevent the spell. This does give you a chance to prevent the spell altogether by killing the caster outright.
Aura of concentration is great for frontline casters only
Most spellcasters that are concentrating on spells tend to be backline casters. This becomes a problem for aura of concentration as it only aids concentration saving throws for allies close to you, which mostly won’t be the spellcasting types, or not the ones concentrating on the big nasty spells anyway. It’s not redundant. As a paladin, you might concentrate on some spells yourself, or you might stick near a cleric maintaining spirit guardians etc. It just happens to be a case where the execution may be a challenge to really get right.
Eternal spellguard means serious protection
At least for those in your aura of protection. You’ll certainly want to be pairing this with guardian bond too, but that preferably means being prepared ahead of combat for an encounter. This is the subclass’ level 20 feature so many characters won’t reach this level, but it is very strong if you do reach this point. You’re basically very resilient against pretty much any spells and your spellguard bond target is even more resilient.
Verdict
There’s a decent enough idea here, but the execution doesn’t really work in practice. A reliance on being so close to allies is challenging but the characters you want to help most often won’t be those right next to you. There are also too many demands on your reaction and technically some fairly situational features that make the spellguard a bit naff against non-spellcasters. I think this one needs a rethink.
2/5
Rogue: magic stealer
What are they?
These rogues are adept at stealing magic more than stealing coin. They are students of magic so that they can avoid and even harness its effects.
Are they any good?
Empower sneak attack is just better sneak attacks when spellcasters are around
Note that this doesn’t need to be an enemy spellcaster, so as long as you’ve got allied spellcasters around and they’re casting plenty of level 1+ spells, then you can piggyback those spells for even more damage. It’s a pretty decent boost but obviously benefits parties with more spellcasters and rogues with a high intelligence.
The problem is that high intelligence. It wouldn’t be unusual to have 2 or 3 uses of this per long rest (or less), which feels like too few, especially when you have to factor in missed attacks. I think this could be improved by having a set number of uses that grows with levels not tied to your intelligence modifier, or perhaps not limiting the number of uses at all, though I can see that being spammed by a clever party.
Drain magic is another that relies on allied spellcasters
The use case for this is mainly for when allied spellcasters are using an ongoing spell at the end of combat (which should still be maintained as most combats don’t last a whole minute) and you can basically restore their spell slot. Pretty handy and allies at low levels will thank you for the extra spell slots.
Its limited to level 1 and 2 spells though and won’t hit level 3 spells until level 13 so this can have diminishing returns.
Disrupt spell is especially nasty against wisdom and charisma casters
Intelligence tends to be one of the lower ability scores for creatures. Use this against low intelligence casters to really cause them problems. It’s worth noting that there’s no specification of what the saving throw DC should be. I presume it would be 8 + proficiency bonus and intelligence modifier, but I don’t think this is stated.
Spell susceptibility means working with allied spellcasters even more
This is great if your allies want to incur a saving throw from a spell against a creature and you can weaken them to it. Like with many of the magic stealer’s features, it really relies on having allied spellcasters around which isn’t usually a problem, but the more you have the better.
Nondetection is so situational it’s only worth using because it’s free
You can easily go a whole campaign without this ever coming up. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever had it come up where nondetection would have helped my party. It’s an extra feature at level 13 so I can’t complain too much. It’s also a practically permanent and free feature. But maybe just make it permanent if you’re going to these lengths already to make it almost permanent.
Eldritch implosion encourages empower sneak attack on enemies
You might normally use empower sneak attack on allied spells as they’re more reliable, but doing this on enemy spells could really mess with their spellcasting, leaving them stunned and their spell having failed. It’s situational, but powerful when you can land it.
Verdict
There’s some really interesting things going on with the magic stealer. Enhanced sneak attacks, recovering spell slots and making spells harder to cast or resist are all great. They also dodge the situational nature of some anti-magic subclasses by having the magic stealer features often work alongside magic from allies.
However, I do have some minor issues. The first is that there’s only 1 reason to take a high intelligence ability score. Which almost makes it feel wasted (that’s for more uses of empower sneak attack). It might help if DCs were based on intelligence, but eldritch implosion isn’t and disrupt spell forgets to mention one.
On empowered sneak attack, it’s too easy to have very few uses of this. Even at 20 intelligence, that’s only 5 uses per long rest maximum and some of those will likely be misses which makes what could easily be a very strong feature, a little weak.
Occult shroud is mostly useless in my opinion. However, I think it’s a ribbon feature, just a ribbon feature that kicks in at level 13 as opposed to level 3 so maybe that’s fine.
Finally, for what is kind of an interesting subclass, it has a really dull name! There’s no flair to it like arcane trickster, it just sort of says what it does which can be fine, but feels like a missed opportunity. How about the spellvoid or the magic maledict. I came up with those in 2 minutes, but Wizards of the Coast can have them for free.
Mostly though, this is a good subclass that just needs a few tweaks.
3/5
Warlock: vestige patron
What is it?
A warlock that draws power from a dying god to help them regain their former power and status. This is conceptually really interesting and could lead to some interesting story and roleplay opportunities.
Is it any good?
Warlock beast master?
The vestige warlock gets a summonable companion that is very similar to a beast master’s animal companion. I even compared the stat blocks and it’s very similar to the beast of the sky stat block. It is a slower flyer and less able to move in and out of combat safely, but it also hits harder (at early levels anyway) and has interesting options with it’s bonus action too.
Flexible subclass spells
You can pick subclass spells based on the 4 cleric subclasses in the Player’s Handbook giving you a flexible choice of spells to add to your repertoire. Interestingly, these aren’t your typical warlock affair either giving the flexibility to add more cleric spells to your arsenal.
Life domain will give you healing spells, light domain will give you damage dealers, trickery domains will give you stealth and utility spells and war domain will give you protective and close range damage dealing spells. With the war domain, you also get spirit guardians which could be great on a melee warlock.
Defensive vestige
At level 10, the warlock’s vestige can manifest a protective aura that grants damage resistances to some fairly common damage types (and radiant). There’s also immunity to 2 of the more common conditions in charmed and frightened.
You’ll also be able to send your vestige back to the pocket plane in exchange for stopping you going to 0HP and regaining a decent number of hit points instead. It’s some pretty solid resilience.
Temporary powerful forms for your vestige
At higher levels, you can transform your vestige into a more powerful version based on a summon spell cast at level 7+. It’s basically a free high level spell per long rest and helps your vestige to temporarily upscale in power. It does require concentration though.
Verdict
The vestige warlock has some great flavour and makes an interesting alternative to the beast master with a warlock flavour. Flexible spell lists are great and can mean you can adapt your spell list around the kind of warlock build you’re going for. Your vestige doesn’t scale as consistently as a beast master’s animal companion, but it does do so temporarily in a bigger way.
I also think I can comprehend why a warlock would get into this kind of deal with the pact feeling mutually beneficial for the warlock and the patron. I often feel that warlock pacts are so imbalanced that it almost feels unfathomable that a warlock would go into such a pact. This pact though, I can sort of get behind. Overall, I think this is a pretty solid subclass.
4/5
Summary
As with many Unearthed Arcanas, the mystic subclasses UA is a mixed bag. The warrior of the mystic arts is mostly good, but needs its level 17 feature sorting out so it’s actually useful. I think the oath of the spellguard falls a bit flat in practice and needs a rethink. The magic stealer is mostly good with some tweaks and the vestige patron seems like a good and interesting warlock option.
So overall, I think these are mostly good options. It’ll be interesting to see how these subclasses evolve with future iterations.
