Why are Circumstance Bonuses?

[icefractal]

As in, why is "circumstance" a type? Why aren't they just untyped?

Unlike most other bonuses, circumstance bonuses stack with other circumstance bonuses if they're from a different source. Except, that's already the standard rule - a single source doesn't stack with itself unless explicitly stated to. So why aren't these just untyped bonuses?

Dodge bonuses are the only other example of stacking I can think of, but unlike circumstance, dodge has other implications - that it doesn't apply to flat-footed AC.

Yeah, somehow it's been years and I hadn't really thought about this, but I was recently making a list of buffs and wanted shorthand to denote type. Most of the types can just use the first letter (enhancement, morale, etc), but competence and circumstance are both c ... except at that point I realized that circumstance didn't even need to exist.

[Tohron]

I'm pretty sure circumstance bonuses are the only type that stacks even if they are from the same source (i.e. multiple people making Aid Another checks).

[pabelfly]

Circumstance is a good bonus type. It makes sense that some actions are more likely to occur when specific conditions are met, and this is best modelled by offering bonuses that occur under those specific circumstances.

The only real fault they have is that it can be hard to remember them if there are a lot of circumstantial bonuses on a character or very rarely occur, but it's not that big a deal.

[Biggus]

I'm pretty sure circumstance bonuses are the only type that stacks even if they are from the same source (i.e. multiple people making Aid Another checks).

I think your memory has failed you there:


Circumstance bonuses stack with all other bonuses, including other circumstance bonuses, unless they arise from essentially the same benefit

(PHB p.306)

Aid Another (both for skills and attacks) doesn't list a bonus type (PHB p.65, 154).

[bekeleven]

I always suspected, although don't know how to confirm, that some of the 3.X WotC designers thought that all bonuses should be typed. Which is an instinct I can understand, for the record. I tend to type the bonuses I grant in my homebrew, although I'm not so devoted to it that I can say with certainty I do it all the time.

[Jay R]

As in, why is "circumstance" a type? Why aren't they just untyped?

If the rules were only mechanical, like in chess, and there was no attempt to describe a simulation, then that would make sense. The rules of chess do not attempt to describe why the religiously-named pieces can only move diagonally.

I suspect that the category of a circumstance bonus exists in the rules because the concept exists in the real world. It is easier to do something with the right circumstances.