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Escape Route: An ally who also has this feat provokes no attacks of opportunity for moving through squares adjacent to you or within your space.
If a rider and his mount both have this feat (say as an Animal Companion or Eidolon) would it prevent either of them from provoking AoO's with any movement whatsoever?
Looks like a badly-worded feat. From a house rule - even an RAI perspective - I would not allow it to function that way.
Based on the flavor text of the feat, it seems like it was meant to allow you to move through additional squares without provoking during a withdrawal action.
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By RAW, it works. By RAI, I don't think it should nor is intended.
The feat doesn't seem to take the mounted combat rules into account. In particular, how the mount and rider interact regarding space and movement. In particular, "For simplicity, assume that you share your mount's space during combat," and "Your mount acts on your initiative count as you direct it. You move at its speed, but the mount uses its action to move."
The mounted combat rules are a bit kludgey. This feat is straight forward unless it interacts with mounted combat, because it doesn't really take the kludginess into account. The feat is a teamwork feat, so it takes two or more to use it in any circumstance. And, it's a fairly nice one, although maybe not nice enough to warrant a feat slot, but a lot of teamwork feats are like that.
The problem is that the mount and rider are treated essentially as a single unit for space and movement. This is done as a simplification. But, it's the only situation where two creatures are treated this way.
By design, the feat provides character A a zone of control through which character B can move with impunity. Outside of mounted combat, that is a static zone and so is limited in scope. For mounted combat, the zone is dynamic and applies to the total movement of the mount/rider. If it does work for mount and rider, this means that the leverage of the feat is pretty significant and is unique to the mount/rider pair, but largely on the basis of mounted combat simplification; mounted combat essentially serves as a loophole here.
Combinations are generally good; they encourage game mastery at the cost of power escalation. Loopholes are bad; they are design flaws that are be uncovered due to game mastery.
One of the major exploits I could see here, even if the wording is clear, would be an Inquisitor who cross-classes to get an animal companion. If an animal companion, mount, or familiar counts as an "ally" in this case, an Inquisitor could choose a smaller companion, like a falcon, carry it around, and never provoke, because of their ability to benefit from a teamwork feat without an ally having it\qualifying for it.
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Just to clarify, from an RAI standpoint I agree with Howie23. How I envision the feat working is that your ally is actively covering your back as you pass through the threatened square; if for some reason the ally LEFT that position as you exit the threatened square (which would be a highly unusual circumstance, but not unheard-of), then he's no longer there to guard you, and you'd take the AoO. That would happen if you were riding your ally\your ally was riding you.
I asked this a long time ago, actually.
RAW yes.
RAI? Absolutely not.
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Howie23 is entirely right, but there's another extremely common scenario that this also makes ridiculous. Any spellcaster who gains a Familiar and uses the Valet Familiar archetype can take advantage of this and only have to burn a feat slot on the caster. Get a rat or similarly-sized familiar, keep it in the backpack, and technically this feat triggers and you have a caster who will never suffer an AoO. RAI, absolutely not. RAW, yup.
I'm going to disagree and say that escape route does not count when are mounted on your companion. I often see people quote the Enemy within 5' is adjacent. So I'll say another teamwork feat from the same book states adjacent or same square right in the definition of the feat.
Pack Flanking (Teamwork)
You and your companion creature are adept at fighting together against foes.
Benefit: When you and your companion creature have this feat, your companion creature is adjacent to you or sharing your square, and you both threaten the same opponent, you are both considered to be flanking that opponent, regardless of your actual positioning.
This seems to say clearly that it can be either adjacent or same square so I don't think a mount is adjacent.
If you rule that the mount and rider are not adjacent for the purposes of Escape Route, then they are also not adjacent for the purposes of Cleave or other negative effects.
But I think that would only work with a mount that's at least the same size as the character. If a tiny familiar is in the same square as the caster (either in a satchel or sitting on the caster's shoulder), I wouldn't call them adjacent.
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I'm going to disagree and say that escape route does not count when are mounted on your companion. I often see people quote the Enemy within 5' is adjacent. So I'll say another teamwork feat from the same book states adjacent or same square right in the definition of the feat.
Pack Flanking (Teamwork)
You and your companion creature are adept at fighting together against foes.Benefit: When you and your companion creature have this feat, your companion creature is adjacent to you or sharing your square, and you both threaten the same opponent, you are both considered to be flanking that opponent, regardless of your actual positioning.
This seems to say clearly that it can be either adjacent or same square so I don't think a mount is adjacent.
But Escape Route also has that clause;
Escape Route (Teamwork)
You have trained to watch your allies' backs, covering them as they make tactical withdraws.
Benefit: An ally who also has this feat provokes no attacks of opportunity for moving through squares adjacent to you or within your space.
Since your mount and you share the same space, your mount is clearly within your space, and vice versa. And you also share the same set of adjacent squares.