Game Primer The purpose of this primer is to help 5e players pick up 4e. I will likely add to it over time. Reading this in no way is a substitute for reading the sections in the Player's Handbook for 4e . Action Types Just like in 5e, you get 3 actions on your turn. In 5e they are Action, Movement and Bonus Action. In 4e they are Standard, Move and Minor. Standard Action : Basically your Action. You can downgrade this action to either a Move or a Minor Action if you wish to take an extra Move or Minor on your turn. Move Action : Your movement. Unlike in 5e you cannot split up movement, once you complete the move action your movement is over. The most common movement actions are Shifting a Square (a 5 foot step), Moving your speed or standing up from Prone (which takes all of your movement instead of half). You can also downgrade your Move Action to a minor action on your turn. Minor Action : This is similar to a Bonus Action although you can take multiple if you downgraded another action to a Minor. Opportunity Action : A character can take one Opportunity Action per TURN if triggered. For Example, if 5 goblins try to walk past the fighter on each of their turns, the fighter can Opportunity Attack all 5 of them. Immediate : This is similar to 5e Reaction and you can take one Immediate per ROUND. In 4e an Immediate can be either an Interrupt (it happens before the thing that triggered it) or a Reaction (It happens after the thing that triggered it). Free Action : I am not sure if there is a Correlation in 5e for Free Action or if they just say 'it happens'. A Free Action can be taken on or off your turn, but have very few restrictions. One of those restrictions is that if you have multiple Free Actions that allow you to attack, you can only use one of them per TURN. As far as timing is concerned, all Free Actions function as Reactions (so they happen after the trigger) unless they have to be interrupts to function. No Action : Like Free Actions, No Actions are just a thing that happens, only they happen no matter what. You can take No Actions while petrified for example. There is not normally a restriction placed on No Actions, but in the guild we limit No Action attacks just like Free Action attacks to only once per TURN. Combat Advantage : Instead of Roll twice take the higher, it simply gives the attacker +2 to their attack rolls against the target. Action Points : Each player has an Action Point and can earn more through play. A player can spend an action point on their turn to take an extra Standard Action. Similar to 5e Fighter’s Action Surge. Defenses and Saves : There are no Fortitude/Reflex/Will saves in 4e. Instead they are defenses like AC that the attacker will attack. If they meet or exceed that defense, the spell or effect hits, otherwise it misses. Saving Throws are something used to remove harmful conditions you are suffering from, like being poisoned or lit on fire. At the end of each turn that you have a harmful condition on you, you roll 1d20. 10 or higher saves, 9 or lower does not save. Some characters will have bonuses to saves, but they are generally either small (like the Genasi’s Earthsoul ability for +1 to saves) or very specific (Like the Halfling’s Bold ability for +5 to saves vs Fear). Spells, Powers and Refluffing In 5e there is one master list of spells and different classes get access to different parts of spell lists. In 4e this is not the case. Every class gets powers. Although some get them at different rates than others, there is a general progression followed for most classes that can be found in the Player's Handbook. The key to remember is that these are mechanically written to only show what they do in combat, but how they function outside of combat (and what they look like) is up to you. For example, if you want to say a Fireball is you pinching a bit of bat guano, saying a few words and then boom there is a big wave of flame, cool. If you want to say Fireball is you summoning a greater fire elemental into the world for just a split second and it torches the area, also cool. If you want to say Fireball is a grenade that you toss into the area and it explodes with fire, perfectly acceptable. The important part is that the mechanics don't change no matter what you do. It doesn't gain the Summon keyword in option 2, you don't have to take an action to pull the grenade from your belt for option 3. These powers are simply the game giving the math needed to make it an interesting encounter.
