Gain heavenly healing and protective powers with this holy order of magi from 3rd party creator, Sterling Vermin.
The Heaven’s Guard are a subclass of the Magus class from 3rd party creator, Sterling Vermin. They protect the holy and sanctified places of the world as well as those that are placed under their protection.
They possess the magical and combat inclinations of a magus, but with a heavy dose of healing capabilities and protective powers. They also make solid damage dealers too.
The magus will be releasing on D&D Beyond on the 29th September 2026 and is already available as a PDF from Sterling Vermin’s website. It includes the full class, 6 subclasses and 31 spells. This article focuses on the Heaven’s Guard subclass for which I’ve evaluated every feature, given some advice on using the Heaven’s Guard and reviewed the subclass.
At a glance
- Half caster that leans more into spellcasting than combat
- Has some substantial healing capabilities
- Can act as a protector build as well as a damage dealer
4/5 – The Heaven’s Guard subclass is perhaps one of the strongest examples of transforming a non-healing class into quite a solid healer. On top of this, they possess some pretty solid protective features that make them a great option for helping the party survive longer. Just be aware that magi are not as resilient as paladins so still needs to be played with some care.
Heaven’s Guard features
Alabaster mark (Lv3) – 4/5
You’ll want to use aegis when an ally (or yourself), is looking like they’re going to draw a lot of attacks that round. Enspell would normally be best against especially tough foes you want to direct attacks against you, but magi aren’t that resilient. The best way to use this might be with a ranged attack and then just stay out of range of the target which may frustrate their attacks which will now be taken with disadvantage against allies. The problem is, magi are at their best with a sword and shield build. This doesn’t prevent some ranged attacks, but they’ll be weaker and shorter range. A pistol build could work, but I still prefer enspell with this feature.
Heaven’s Guard magic (Lv3) – 4/5
| Magus Level | Spells |
|---|---|
| 3 | Cure wounds, give life, guiding bolt, righteous incitement |
| 5 | Animate shield, gentle repose |
| 9 | Mass healing word, revivify |
| 13 | Death ward, stoneskin |
| 17 | Mass cure wounds, raise dead |
Lots of strong healing options here allow your magi to operate as a bit of a healer if needed. You should usually be able to heal and attack each turn too as you can use an attack with your bonus action if you heal with your action.
With the new spells, animate shield can be really good if you need your hands for other things than wielding a shield or if you can use the shield to protect multiple creatures. Where this works better than shield of faith at level 1 is through its lack of concentration and ability to protect multiple allies at once. It suffers though in requiring your bonus action sometimes to move it to the right place, the fact that it can be destroyed and that it needs a higher level spell slot. Some potentially good defence here though.
Give life is a great cantrip that allows some healing (usually 1-4d8 depending on your level) at the cost of some hit point dice. As you can weave attacks and cantrips into your action, this still leaves space for healing word or mass healing word with your bonus action if needed and will eventually outperform healing word for healing without using a spell slot.
Righteous incitement is a cantrip with the potential to be the highest damage cantrip in the game, but you’ll need to avoid being the target of an attack from your target of this spell. It has a decent damage type too. This will work best on ranged and evasive magi, but only if you can avoid your target.
Heavensent (Lv3) – 4/5
+2 damage while wielding a shield means you’ll really want to be wielding a shield as much as you can. This will stack with the dueling fighting style making for a pretty high damage shield-wielder. Unfortunately, unlike other martial classes, you only get one attack per turn. Transforming spell damage into radiant can be great when trying to bypass damage resistances.
The extra healing is also quite nice, but it will cost you hit dice and these could be quickly depleted, especially if you’re using give life a fair bit. There is some ambiguity as to whether this is intended to only work for a single creature or for the total healing to all creatures. I think the intention is that this can only benefit one creature at a time, even if using something like mass healing word.
Guardian’s wings (Lv7) – 3/5
This is a one turn flight for some swift movement once per encounter at most. Use it to regroup and add a bit of healing to some allies. You could also use the flight to get somewhere tricky or temporarily fight in the skies, but you’ll only manage this for a turn. Just be aware that it costs a bonus action, which is already under fairly heavy strain on this subclass.
Cloak of radiance (Lv14) – 4/5
Some fairly hefty temporary hit points for an ally and they can cause disadvantage on most attacks against them. Great for the party tank to get in the face of creatures and cause them some trouble while helping them survive. The flight could be useful at times too, but it’s temporary flight. It’s more like leaping around like a chicken.
Bright as dawn (Lv20) – 5/5
Heal and sunbeam are both good spells and good options to have available, even if you can’t restore a spell slot when casting in this way like you would with your normal spell surge spell.
An extra use of cloak of radiance is also really good for adventuring days that aren’t one encounter long. Regaining hit dice can be a helpful trade off for your bonus action. The Heaven’s Guard has a few extra ways to expend hit dice and has a tendency to be closer to the action than other magi so may need those hit dice to heal themselves or others. This is especially the case with bright at dawn which can use hit dice when you hit to heal and deal extra damage.
Just remember that the Heaven’s Guard does have a fairly overburdened bonus action.
How good is the Heaven’s Guard?
The Heaven’s Guard does a good job of distinguishing itself from both a paladin and a cleric, while sort of having aspects of both. Every party needs a healer and the Heaven’s Guard has enough about it to make a fairly decent one. It’s not going to overthrow the cleric here, but it is probably one of the better healer subclasses. On top of that, it adds damage and defence making you a really well rounded build. Just be aware that even as a protector, you’re not much of a tank.
My only gripe with the subclass (and it’s not a major one) is it has a lot of uses for your bonus action which the core magus class is already using a fair bit too. There will be a bit of compromise on what you can accomplish in a turn, but this does also mean you have quite a few options.
4/5
Optimising a Heaven’s Guard magus build
While the Heaven’s Guard adds a heavier leaning towards healing, defence and resilience than a standard magus, it doesn’t fundamentally change how you’d approach building one. If you want some advice on building a Heaven’s Guard magi, you can use the same advice I give for the core magus class by checking out my magus guide below.
