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Something I liked about the first playtest's lack of OAs was that it made running away viable. So, I'm wondering how would you like to see this handled? Can an enemy (or PC) turn tail and run out?
I'd like to see it be one (or more OAs), and then something like a 4e skill challenge. I worry that retreating isn't a viable enough option for PCs, nor enemies.

There was a great article on how to handle this in Dragon 396 titled "Fight or Flight".  In short, at the end of any round either side can decide to surrender (or demand that the other side surrender), attempt to parlay, or attempt to run.

If you surrender, the other side of course can choose to accept or just keep fighting.  Same with attempting to parlay.

For running, the article handled it as a skill challenge.  First, the group must attempt to break away, which is resolved via a group skill check.  Athletics and Stealth were listed as the most common skills here, but of course others could apply.  The difficulty depends on how close you are to an enemy.  If more than half the group passes their check, the group breaks away.  If not, combat continues.

Once the group has broken away, a chase scene might occur (if the other side doesn't want to let you escape), again handled with a skill challenge.

The exact mechanics of handling the situation might change, but I think the overall message of the article is very useful: don't let combat eliminate all options other than fighting to the death.

Mar 1, 2013 -- 4:42AM, Diffan wrote:

I'm not seeing the problem here. Monster wants to run away from a fight,

Action: Disengage (move 10 feet, unmolested)
Move: Move speed further away from the combat.

Done.    

It is more a problem for the heroes.  The trouble is because of the way initiative works.  The PCs will most likely be spread out in turn order, with the monsters going in between.  So when the players decide that they need to retreat, they need to somehow get everyone out safely within the bounds of the initiative order.

As each character takes a turn and attempts to retreat, you are left with fewer and fewer characters facing the monsters.  By the end, you will most likely have the monsters surrounding the last character.

As the article says, initiative is very good at some things, but handling retreat (or parlay, or surrender) isn't one of them.  That is why it suggests breaking out from the initiative order when one side wants to do one of those things.

The trick is to remember that initiative, like so much of D&D, is an abstraction.  In the "actual" fight, characters don't act one after another, everyone on the battle waiting patiently for each character to finish before acting themselves.  It is actually a confusing mesh of activity in which each combatant acts at the same time.  Of course, there is no way to easily handle this in an RPG, so initiative and turns makes a lot of sense.  But when the situation calls for it, set the abstraction aside in favor of other methods of resolution.

Mar 1, 2013 -- 6:14AM, GilbertMDH wrote:

If the whole party wants to escape, everyone in the party can just delay until the lowest initiative member, and then they all break contact at once.

That works very poorly because the entire party had to stand there and take hits during their delay and then they have to risk opportunity actions (depending on where everyone is situated) during the retreat.  It really means that retreat is not a viable option.