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Hello, all! This is my first time posting to the boards, so I'm a bit nervous, but here we go!
A friend of mine if running low-magic custom Pathfinder game, and is imposing some fairly hefty penalties for character death. In response to this, I decided to build and Aldori Swordlord who focuses on fighting defensively and using Combat Expertise to jack up his Armor class. To that end, I've got a few questions.
1.) Can you both Fight Defensively AND use the Combat Expertise feat?
2.) Thinking about building into Crane style by 2nd level for the awesome bumps to Fighting Defensively. Thoughts?
3.) Does a dodge bonus to your AC apply to your CMD?
You can get crane style, crane wing, and crane riposte all by second level if you play a human monk of many styles. Using first level feats, you can take dodge and crane style, and then use the class bonus feats to get crane wing and riposte. This would allow you to fight defensively with only a -1 to hit, but you get to also deflect and even counter attack one hit a round. Even before you get armor, it would be easy to have decent AC and defense at little cost.
The fun thing about dipping this archetype is that you are not obligated to play it like a monk at all. You do not have flurry of blows, so you can use any weapon you please and the advantages of actual armor can far outstrip the AC boosts from monk. This also means you do not need to focus on wisdom, which helps to relieve the typical MAD nature of the class.
Unfortunately, you would really need to invest your first level of feats to accomplish this. If you want to use weapon finesse, it might take until level 3 to get it. Also, your choice in weapons might be restricted to short swords until that time (they are on the monk's proficiencies, but often ignored)
Other advice: definitely get Acrobatics. It grants another +1 AC at 3 ranks for fighting defensively.
Also:
A creature can also add any circumstance, deflection, dodge, insight, luck, morale, profane, and sacred bonuses to AC to its CMD. Any penalties to a creature's AC also apply to its CMD. A flat-footed creature does not add its Dexterity bonus to its CMD.
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Also, if you go dex (which you seem to be as you're going for high AC) make sure to take the 1 level in the Aldori Swordlord PrC. That gives you +2 shield(+1 if wielded in 2 hands) bonus to AC from the feat, as well as dex to damage.
As to your questions:
1) Yes. Also, I suggest the trait that negates 1 penalty from your combat expertise. So your first 3 levels it's free AC.
2) Frankly stuff like Crane Style and Snake Style are flat better than AC. Dedicated AC boosting is usually very expensive and takes away from damage. This allows you to block the first high BaB attack, boost your damage, and then the iteratives have a much lower chance to hit.
3)Yes dodge goes to AC.
Lemeres' suggest of a 2-level dip in MoMS is a good one. Most Swordlord's I've seen have it simply because the styles are that good.
All that good stuff above, plus be a Halfling. You get a dex bump, a size bonus, and you can take the Cautious Fighter feat, which increases the AC from fighting defensively/total defense by 2.
Then if you want to be a pal to any of your allies that would stand with you, take Blundering Defense to share the wealth:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/arg-feats/blundering-defense-combat-halfling
You're clearly aiming to dip in the Swordlord PrC to get a non-magic agile for your Dueling Blade, right?
Thinking about it, taking the MoMS as any race any time after you get Crane style is good too. It gets a similar result. I just plugged my suggestion in since I love how easily you can make an untouchable character from level 1 that way.
Even after iteratives start coming around, deflecting the first hit is basically the same as having +5 AC. The fact that crane style and acrobatics both add a +1 onto fighting defensively's +2 (making it +4), just means that you are even more untouchable. Just watch out for creatures with multiple natural attacks or TWF.