Vetting some house rules

[Vorpalchicken]

I think adjusting the number of skills might be going too far, however I don't mind the illiteracy thing or the Int change to initiative.

Actually the illiteracy thing could be setting dependant. If we are trying to approximate a medieval European flavor (or really anything other than a modern-mass-education-is-widespread-setting), then illiteracy should be very common. (Of course this might not be appropriate for something like Ebberon or even the Forgotten Realms.)

Perhaps a better approach would be to make literacy a tool proficiency. Any character could take it at the expense of one of their other tools. It's not that the average or slightly below average character is incapable of reading, it's just a matter of "where would they have learned that?"

The average person didn't go to school and neither did their parents. There is a good reason why old signs didn't have words on them.

The argument against a realistic literacy rule (and possibly the majority of these rules) is that it makes things a bit of a headache. Eg. certain puzzles, scrolls, letters and other messages wouldn't work for certain characters and that just doesn't improve the game for the players or the DM.