Does Mage Armor apply to Dodge rolls by default?

Question

I'm currently building a Mastigos mage and I wanted to get a good grasp on how the Mage Armor attainments work.

The Mind and Space Mage Armors both say (on page 194) to add the Arcanum's dot rating to your Defense (so, with Mind 3 and Space 2, I'd get +3 and +2 Defense, respectively). In Space Armor's description, it also mentions that you add your Space to your dice pool when Dodging while Mind does not, even though Mind also addresses Dodging.

My point of confusion is whether the bonus to Defense from Mage Armor is used when doubling Defense for your Dodge dice pool.

I would imagine so, due to Mage Armor adding to your Defense score before it's doubled, which would mean that Space armor adds your Arcanum bonus to Dodge rolls three times (+X bonus to Defense, multiplied by two, +X to Dodge), which is quite helpful. If not, then that makes the Mind Arcanum's Mana-expenditure ability riskier.

Answer 1

The line about adding Space to Dodge pools was removed in errata, due to being redundant. Mage Armor that increases Defense always applies to Dodge.

According to the errata document linked here, some changes were made to Space Mage Armor (emphasis mine):

Space Armor: Works on all attacks, not just ones you're aware of. remove the reference to Dodge dice pools as it's redundant.

The word 'redundant' clearly implies the bonus to Defense also applies to Dodge.

For completeness, and arguing only from the text as it now stands, not developer commentary on errata:

The relevant section of Space Mage Armor now reads:

Space Armor adds character’s Space rating to her Defense. The character also applies her Defense to firearms attacks. In addition, if the character successfully Dodges an attack, the player can spend one point of Mana to redirect the attack to another applicable target.

Mind reads:

Mind Armor adds the character’s Mind Arcanum to her Defense. In addition, if the mage Dodges a target’s attack, the player can spend a point of Mana to cause the target to gain the Beaten Down Tilt (p. 319); the target just doesn’t want to continue the fight.

Neither of these specifically mention adding to the Dodge dice pool, but both have benefits on a successful dodge.

Dodge (p218) reads:

double your character's Defense but do not subtract it from attack rolls. Instead, roll Defense as a dice pool, and subtract each success from the attacker's successes.

The Dodge pool is directly based on Defense, not any specific traits; so bonuses to Defense apply to Dodge unless otherwise stated. Nothing says a Mage Armor bonus is excluded from a Dodge pool.

This means the final dice pool includes 2*Arcanum for both of these forms of Mage Armor (and any other that increases Defense).