Pathfinder 5-foot step vs. D&D 4e shift

Question

Is a 5-foot step in Pathfinder essentially the same as a Shift movement in D&D 4th edition? I believe that neither movements provoke an attack of opportunity so they sound like the same thing with a different name.

From "Take 5-Foot Step", Combat, PFSRD:

You can move 5 feet in any round when you don't perform any other kind of movement. Taking this 5-foot step never provokes an attack of opportunity. You can't take more than one 5-foot step in a round, and you can't take a 5-foot step in the same round that you move any distance.

Answer 1

Mostly

Pathfinder's (and 3.5's) "5-foot step" move action is almost the same as 4e's "shift" move action. Both let you move one (5-foot) square without provoking any OA/AoO attacks.

Note that there are 2 differences: in 4e, shifting can be one half of a double move, but in 3.5/Pathfinder it cannot, since in 3.5/Pathfinder you can't take a 5-foot step in the same round that you move any distance (other than the 5-foot step). The other difference is that in 3.5/Pathfinder, taking a 5-foot doesn't use up your move action for the round (or any other actions for that matter), so you can still use it for non-movement purposes (such as a full-attack).

Answer 2

Sort of, but not really.

A 4th edition shift is similar in that you can spend a move action to shift* one square without provoking an opportunity attack, but the similarities end there.

^{*this is the closest thing to a 5-foot step, you can't just say "a shift"}

While any character can use a move action to shift 1 square, there is no direct analogy between a shift and a 5-foot step, and they are certainly not "the same thing with a different name."

Take the following examples that clearly deviate from 3.5/pathfinder

• You can shift twice or more in one turn
• You can take your normal movement, and then shift, or do so in reverse order.
• There are powers that let you shift multiple squares at a time

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The best way to think of shifting is that it is an amount of movement that does not provoke opportunity attacks, with the additional clarification that any character can spend a move action to shift one square.