[3.5] Best defensive buffs?

[Wonton]

Our party has a psion, a wizard, a cleric, a bard, and a rogue/ninja, and we're currently in an unfortunate situation. The cleric, who really should be the party tank, has mediocre Con and rolls badly on HP rolls. So, instead we've got the bard up in the front lines. Problem is, he still drops in 2-3 hits from CR-appropriate monsters.

We're currently level 9, and need to find a way to make him tank better, preferably avoiding round/level things.

[Darwin]

Most encounters have been decided in 2-3 rounds anyway, and as it has been pointed out several times on these boards, tanking is kind of a moot point since you can't really force the enemy to hit you anyway. But if you want defensive spells, here's defensive spells:

You want miss chance. Displacement and Greater Mirror Image are godlike for this purpose (and don't forget GMI is an Immediate Action cast). Both spells should be available to the party at your level. Greater Mage Armor is decent enough and is also available to you.

[tyckspoon]

Alter Self is probably the best thing the Bard can do for himself (hopefully he selected it for a Spell Known. If not, either Pyschic Reformation him or ask the DM to let him adjust due to newly-realized necessity.) Use it for a big Natural Armor bonus at a 10 min/level duration. Or the Wizard can copy down some scrolls of it and then the Bard uses them. Other than that.. most of the best defensive buffs are short duration, Personal only, or both, so you have to perform some shenanigans to make use of them.

[Runestar]

Bring in summoned monsters and astral constructs as tanks instead? Some of them have quite a bit of hp (especially with that complete mage ring which maxes out the hp of summons), and you don't have to bother with healing them afterwards.