As those of you terminally online enough will recall, shortly after the release of Baldur Gate 3 last year, a Tweet urging developer Larian to add real-time combat to its admittedly slow-paced RPG went mega-viral. This suggestion was roundly mocked despite (or perhaps because of) its earnest nature, with plenty of armchair game developers declaring it improbable, impossible, even. Today, SynthPotato stands vindicated, with modders taking the first tentative steps towards making real-time combat in BG3 a reality.
Spotted by PC Gamer, modder tinybike just released a "rough draft" of their real-time combat mod, with the caveat that they haven't actually managed to implement the "pause" part. They are confident this can be overcome and the system refined, and we'll be fascinated to watch the progress of this particular project.
The first two Baldur's Gate games employed the CRPG staple of Real-Time with Pause (RTwP), which allowed players to issue commands at their leisure before unpausing to watch the action play out and make adjustments as needed. With standard attacks being automated at regular intervals, combat certainly moves along quicker, but you lose some of the deliberate nature of true turn-based battles.