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"Condition" can refer either to (a) a state some entity is in (as in "I stepped right in to see what condition my condition was in"), or to (b) a possibility that may or may not obtain (as in "under no condition whatever shall I marry you").
Crucially, note that in the (b) sense "condition" is largely synonymous with "circumstance." In PF2, however, "conditional" is used in contrast to "circumstance"—it is meant emphatically to connote the (a) sense. The problem is that in English, the word does the opposite. Rather than "of or relating to a state some entity is in," it almost always means "of or relating to a possibility that may or may not obtain" (as in "the terms of our agreement were conditional on your cooperation").
Because of this, the phrase "conditional" modifier is both confusing and vacuous. It just sounds like an arbitrary synonym for "circumstance modifier." To solve this problem, "conditional modifier" should simply become "condition modifier."
As a bonus, this will give the names matching grammars: either both names should be nouns ("condition" and "circumstance") or both adjectives ("conditional" and "circumstantial"). As any good editor will tell you, the mismatched language is sloppy.
I think you're correct, but I also think 'condition modifier' sounds awful. It suggests the bonus/penalty has more to do with the state of a sofa (sagging with a broken leg) than a spell effect.
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I would rather have new names that are clear and very distinct. As some people already said in other treads, things like Feat Bonus, Alchemy Bonus, Spell Bonus, Class Bonus, Item Bonus, etc, would make it clearer and would allow for instantly recognizing if something does stack or not. Keeping the amount of bonuses is paramount, but having only two types is counterproductive for the developer's intentions of incentivizing teamwork over hyper specialization that trivializes a set of challenges while rendering others useless.
I would rather have new names that are clear and very distinct. As some people already said in other treads, things like Feat Bonus, Alchemy Bonus, Spell Bonus, Class Bonus, Item Bonus, etc, would make it clearer and would allow for instantly recognizing if something does stack or not. Keeping the amount of bonuses is paramount, but having only two types is counterproductive for the developer's intentions of incentivizing teamwork over hyper specialization that trivializes a set of challenges while rendering others useless.
I'm certainly all in favor of relaxing the stacking limitations, though in this thread I just wanted to make the case for a small (but maybe not unimportant) stylistic point.
(My sense is that the devs are pretty committed to the two bonus types, and trying to talk them out of it is futile.)