Just like MM's have a turn-based mode button, Baldur's Gate has a pause button. The important thing is that when you pause the game, you can still give commands to your characters. Then, when you resume, they start doing what you told them to do. And you can pause as often as you want.(By the way, I think that's something that the game is counting with. Pausing multiple times in each combat is absolutely standard for everybody. If you aren't a RTS champion, then micromanaging your party in real time is out of question.)
Moreover, there are very extensive auto-pause settings, i. e. you can set up the game to pause automatically in a number of situations (character hit, weapon ineffective, target killed, a character runs out of ammo, enemy sighted etc. etc.) You can also set it to pause at the start of each turn of combat (since the game is based on AD&D, it works in terms of turns, even though they play out in real time). That way, you get something that's very close to a turn-based experience.
