How to increase survivability in Wild Shape? [closed]

Question

My Moon Druid already has multiclassed with Monk gaining Unarmored Defense for AC improvement and Touch of Death from Way of the Long Death for the temp HP. This is still not enough to keep the beast for alive until the end of most encounters.

I know taking more Druid levels instead would have given me access to forms with more HP, but I do not want other beasts, I want my beasts tougher.
Specifically I really like the attack abilities of the Giant Constrictor Snake.

How can I increase the HP or the AC further? Spending the spell slots on healing is very inefficient, and as a Monk I can do better things with the bonus actions.

Answer 1

Multiclassing

A number of multiclass options will bulk up your beasts (cons in italics):

• Raging Grizzly
  • A 1 dip into Barbarian can get you resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage through the Rage feature
  • Bringing this to level 3 and going Path of the Totem Warrior (bear) will give you even more resistances (all types except psychic) during your rage
  • This require a Strength of 13 and has limited daily uses.
• Serpent's Hex
  • Picking up 1 level of Warlock (Hexblade) gives you access to Hexblade's Curse which means you can heal after a cursed enemy dies.
  • require 13 Charisma, healing tied to Charisma and warlock levels so it requires heavy investment to pay off

Feats

• Tough as a Rhino's Hide
  • the Tough feat is the only defensive feat that your GM is likely to allow in beast forms (for 2*Level HP). Ask your GM first though.

Equipment

• Barding
  • you could invest in armor for your beast forms (see this question and this one though), and you may even be able to get magical versions with GM permission as well.
  • it can be expensive and may be limited on what creatures are eligible for barding depending on your GM
• Ioun Stones
  • while many magic items are not usable by many beast forms since they don't fit on an aninal body and can't be wielded by hooves, Ioun Stones simply float above your head.
  • The relevant ones are Protection, Insight, and Agility for AC (+1) and Fortitude for HP (+1 per hit die)
  • Agility, Insight, and Fortitude won't work with beast forms that already have exceptionally high ability scores (20)
• Blessings
  • These alternative rewards give permanent benefits.
  • Blessing of Protection: +1 AC and saves
  • Blessing of Health: +1 Health per hit die
  • Blessing of Understanding: +1 AC via monk's Unarmored Defense
  • Blessing of Magic Resistance: advantage on saves against spells magical effects
  • relies heavily on GM providing the blessing

Answer 2

Naming things that haven't been said before:

Create a new creature I know that you said you didn't want 'other' beasts, but getting it stronger, yet this still is something you might want to think about.
If you are above lvl 9, 12, 15, etc... Why won't you create a beast giant constrictor variant with the appropriate CR? When you really want to stick with a CR2 creature at lvl 9+ you are throwing away one of the strongest features of a moon druid. (On top of the lower amount of spellslots, for your total level, by multiclassing into a monk.)

Barkskin While transforming into a wild shape, you keep your concentration on spells already cast. If you cast barkskin on yourself and then transform, your AC becomes 16. If you are worried about maintaining concentration while getting hit, try the Warcaster feat or have someone/something else cast it on you.

Stoneskin Same as barkskin, a bit more costly in terms of spell slots, but this one gives you resistance to non-magical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. Even if you get hit, reducing the damage still adds some survivalbility.