50% success / fail chance at ZERO skill?

[hcdavehc]

Is it true if you dump 18 points into a tradeskill mastery (smithing for example), you'd have a 50% chance of success even at zero skill level? The description for the AA says it reduces chance to fail by 50%, so I assume so. Does anyone have conclusive evidence to suggest otherwise? I'm very curious on this as it would save me loads of time on GM smith cultural if it in fact works this way.

[KyrosKrane]

It doesn't quite work that way. Because of the way the formula works, you have to be somewhere in the ballpark of having a chance to succeed before Mastery does much. Hard to explain without going into the math of the formula.

[Bobaten]

While it is true that anyone can succeed 5% of the time, this modifier is applied after the mastery. Basically, at a skill of 0 the formula gives you a negative 237% chance of success on a 384 trivial. For a total failure chance of 337% (yes, I know these numbers don't make much sense). Mastery 3 cuts the failure chance in half, bringing it down to 167% (success chance of negative 33%). Then the minimum success chance of 5% kicks in bringing you right back to where you started.
If you want to get to a 50% success chance with mastery3, you would need to bring your skill up to 237. This brings your unmodified success chance to 0%.