I had the same question. And your post prompted me to think more. My conclusion is: don't worry. It does not matter in the end.
In the end, no matter how many surprises (most are not bugs even though you may believe otherwise), as long as you always have at least one active party member alive all the time, you win.
This Honor mode is not a real-time permadeath mode. In this mode, there are still a plethora of cheese available at our disposal.
Here is a perfect example to show you what I mean =>
In the worst battle I have ever had on Tactician, my Karlach changed her mind mid-conversation and decided to go violent, though totally unprepared, against the overpowered gith patrol in the Risen Road area. During the very first round, the gith warriors killed Karlach not just once, but twice!
However, we players always have this biggest cheese: my Karlach party brought Karlach back to life not just once, but twice - also during the very first round. Unfortunately, any of the gith warriors, once killed or otherwise dead, has to play dead forever.
Another biggest cheese we have is this: for most battles, we almost always have options to disengage and exit combat such that even if up to 3 party members are killed in action, the remaining one may safely retreat to the camp and have Withers restore the entire party outside combat. This ultimately prevents the player party from being defeated even in a most disadvantaged scenario. In the above battle, even if Karlach had stayed dead in the battle, the gith patrol would still be unable to defeat my Karlach's party. That's because Astarion, who survived with just 1 HP (what a miracle), dashed three times and successfully exited combat during the 1st round. He then traveled to the camp to fetch the healing potions (to fully heal himself) and rejoined the battle during the 3rd round.
Additionally, we players are not AI. We are better than AI. In the above battle, Shadowheart successfully disarmed two of the gith warriors during the very first round and then successfully drew the attention of three gith warriors towards her. As expected, she was killed during the 2nd round by the mighty warriors (they are formidable even with unarmed strikes), but not before she had ultimately evened my Karlach's party's odds against this mighty patrol. On the other side, the AI-controlled gith warriors were stupid enough to go after Shadowheart, instead of the severely injured Lae'zel, the near-death Karlach or the fleeing Astarion. And these mighty but also quite stupid warriors were all dead by the 5th round.
As the above example shows, it is okay if we occasionally run into an unexpected death or two (not necessarily a bug even though some of us may believe otherwise). We always have a lot of advantages in keeping our player party undefeated. And if our party is not defeated, our playthrough in Honor mode is not disrupted.
