A Baldur's Gate 3 modder has managed to swap turn-based combat for real-time battles, but it currently comes with the risk of getting slaughtered mid-chat
There also looks to be no pause function right now, but this is clearly a work-in-progress experiment.
Not long after Larian released its official modding toolkit for Baldur's Gate 3, it took next to no time for modders to find out how to unlock a developer mode in it that gives folks the chance to try a bunch of advanced stuff. Now, one modder's busy swapping out the game's turn-based fights for real-time ones, and they're making some decent progress so far.
With some cool custom maps already starting to take shape, in addition all the other interesting work that continues to rock up on the Nexus with and without help from its tools, BG3's Patch 7 has definitely helped bring a lot of eyes back to the game's flourishing modding scene.
The latest interesting thing that you'll find if you do some digging (thanks, PC Gamer) is modder tinybike's early tests of a mod that implements real-time battles into the game.
As of right now, they've only managed to put out an experimental WIP version that comes with plenty of rough edges which still need sanding out, but as you can see below, the ability to leave your manners at home and just start scything through foes - and have them do the same - is already there, even if it looks like you're limited to being a one-person wrecking crew.
Though, as mentioned, this is still very much a "very very very rough draft", with the modder yet to add in the ability to pause so you can issue commands to your party that'll make the mod properly resemble the system emplyed by the classic Baldur's Gates.
"I think because of the way I'm doing combat, which is basically by forcing everything to remain technically out-of-combat, pausing should actually be pretty simple," tinybike explained in a comment, "I think it's just a matter of clicking the button to drop into turn-based mode. Not 100% sure this actually behaves the way you'd expect a NWN-style RTwP system to behave though, I will have to mess with it and see."
They add that they wouldn't reccomend having a go at a campaign with the mod in its current state, writing: "For example, I don't think it plays nice with dialogue yet (i.e. you will get butchered in real time while the dialogue is happening)."
Regardless, this project definitely seems worth keeping an eye on going forwards if you're a fan of RTWP combat. Do you prefer that, or BG3's usual turn-based battles? Let us know below.