The Preamble

Unearthed Arcana is the system that the Dungeons & Dragons developers use to showcase and source playtesting for upcoming content for D&D. After a designated “playtest period,” players will have a chance to submit feedback via surveys on dndbeyond.com. In this post, I’ll cover the most recent Unearthed Arcana article, published on January 15th, 2026: Mystic Subclasses. Specifically, I will be looking at the Oath of the Spellguard Paladin.

Note: This post assumes you have read (or at least skimmed) the content covered in the Unearthed Arcana article linked above. If you have not read it, you may find it useful to have it open in a separate tab.

Oath of the Spellguard (Paladin)

This subclass is basically a paladin who’s all about using magic for righteous purposes. The tenets of the Oath of the Spellguard are:

• Protect the innocent from wicked mages
• Prevent magic from falling into villains’ hands
• Protect mages who use magic honorably

The most clear story prompt that the flavor text gives you is that you are the bodyguard of a mage, but there are some other routes you could take this. For example, you could be a member of an order dedicated to protecting a certain magical relic, like the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. In reality, I would be most excited to play this character in an evil campaign as a dark wizard’s devoted bodyguard, since the Oaths of Devotion and Redemption already exist, and feel more like good-aligned protector types.

Level 3: Guardian Bond, Oath of the Spellguard Spells, & Spellguard Strike

I have issues with this level from a design standpoint. First of all, I don’t think Guardian Bond is worth using most of the time. In most circumstances, the Protection Fighting Style is just as good, if not better, than this feature. If this feature dealt damage when you prevented an attack with it, I think that would make it more worthwhile; 1d10 Radiant damage to the attacker sounds about right to me.

Meanwhile, Spellguard Strike is a weird Level 3 feature for a Paladin. Aside from one recent exception, Paladins don’t get any Level 3 subclass features besides 1-2 Channel Divinity options and a Sacred Oath Spells list, so this feels like a strange departure from that formula. And unlike that other exception (Genie’s Splendor from the Oath of Noble Genies), this is your most powerful feature at this level. That’s remarkably unusual. And that’s still ignoring the fact that it conflicts with what should be your most powerful feature at this level, Guardian Bond, since both are Reaction-based.

In fact, real quick, I want to touch on the Oath of the Spellguard Spells list to help make a point. The spell list itself is pretty good, but the standout spells (in my opinion) are Shield and Counterspell: Both of which are cast as a Reaction. This Reaction clutter is a huge problem for the subclass: Not just because you can only use one of your features per round, but also because you have very little choice over when you use your features. Sure, you’ll probably at least cast Shield once per day, but if Guardian Bond isn’t worth using and Spellguard Strike requires your enemies to cast spells while you’re within melee range, you could very likely go multiple days without using any of these features. This would be fine if these features were super impactful, but they just aren’t. Again, Guardian Bond is worse than a fighting style that Paladins already have access to, and while Spellguard Strike is nice when it comes up, a character with Sentinel or Polearm Master is probably going to get more Reaction attacks over the course of a campaign than you are.

I think Spellguard Strike would be better (both mechanically and from a design standpoint) if it was more like the Level 15 Spell-Breaking Blade feature (more on that later), but it cost a use of your Channel Divinity. Then Spell-Breaking Blade could become more of its own feature: Maybe something that wasn’t so dependent on your Reaction.

Level 7: Aura of Concentration

This is a good feature. It’s nothing game-breaking, but it saves a lot of your spellcasters a feat (War Caster), which is great. It would be nicer if you got some really good Concentration spells on your spell list, but Paladins do still get a few nice Concentration spells that this pairs with, like Shining Smite and Aura of Vitality.

Level 15: Spell-Breaking Blade

The best part of this feature is that when your Counterspell fails, you don’t expend the spell slot. 3rd level spell slots are super valuable for a half caster (equivalent in value to a 5th level spell slot for a full caster), so making sure they stick is fantastic. I think the buff to Spellguard Strike is fine, but as we’ve already discussed, I don’t like Spellguard Strike.

If I were to rewrite this feature with the buff I already proposed for Spellguard Strike in mind, I would let you sacrifice one attack from the Attack action to cast Dispel Magic, and keep the bit about you not expending a spell slot when your Counterspell fails. Alternatively, perhaps if you cast Divine Smite with a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, you can also cast Dispel Magic on the target of the attack as part of the same action.

Level 20: Eternal Spellguard

I think this feature is pretty good. The best part in my opinion is the improvement to Guardian Bond (although it’s a shame that you have to wait until Level 20 for your first Channel Divinity to be worth using), but I think the protection against enemy spell attacks is also solid. I think the Advantage on saving throws against spells sounds better than it is for a variety of reasons, but still nice enough. However, there is some overlap between this feature and Circle of Power (one of the spells on the Oath of the Spellguard list), which I don’t love. If I were to rework this feature, I would make it a straight buff to Circle of Power, maybe one without Concentration.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really like this subclass. For starters, I don’t find the concept particularly exciting, although I think that’s just a matter of taste. The bigger issue is that the features don’t play nice with each other. Spellcasters are rarely going to be up in each other’s business, which means that you’ll either be on the back lines and unable to use features like Spellguard Strike and Spell-Breaking Blade, or you’ll be on the front lines and your allies won’t benefit from your Guardian Bond or Aura of Concentration. You also don’t get a single active feature until Level 20, which really bothers me. Technically Guardian Bond gives you a unique action, but given how weak the feature is, I wouldn’t expect most people to actually take that action in combat. I think the spell list, Aura of Concentration, and maybe Eternal Spellguard could go to print pretty much as-written, but everything else needs a fair bit of polishing before I would be onboard for it.

I know it may seem like a small thing, but again, I’m really bothered by Spellguard Strike from a design perspective. While it is interesting to see the design team explore a new direction with the way Paladin subclasses are structured, the feature just doesn’t feel like it belongs here. I was actually starting to work on a post about “How to Design a Paladin Subclass” when this UA came out, and this breaks a lot of design principles that I was going to cover in that. It doesn’t feel like a standard Paladin subclass, and not in a good way.

I know I’ve mostly said bad things about this subclass, but I do still think there’s something here. I can see this concept working well in the right campaign, even if that’s not the kind of campaign I would find super exciting. If the features that need revisions get the proper attention, I think this could end up being a really great subclass. If you are reading this, I urge you to fill out the feedback survey when it comes out, so that this can become an exciting addition to the game.