my memory of neverwinter nights is more recent, and its basically the same thing, but the way it works is:
a round is 6 seconds long. During a round, every unit in combat gets 1 action. So if you were to play a round of neverwinter in slow motion and actually list all the commands given, it would in fact be a simple initiative based turn based system where everyone inputs their one command, you watch it play out, and then you start the next round and pick a new set of commands. At its heart, Baldur's Gate and the like are turn based.
Movement though, is real time. You can move any of your characters when ever you want no matter how the turn based stuff is working out. Coupled with the fact that terrain matters, movement is immensely important. That is, if your wizard is dying you can in fact go have him hide behind a rock and run in circles around a pillar to keep from getting smacked.
Because the combat is fast paced and all mundane actions are AI controlled, coupled with the real time movement system, the battles 'feel' real time. Playing neverwinter multiplayer with pause disabled feels no different systematically from playing diablo.
In fact the reason pause exists in Baldur's Gate is the system is simply too fast for the human mind to keep up strategically.
Even with pausing in Baldur's Gate though, battles 'feel' like real time events. Especially if you get up to your max attacks per round and then your fighters are swinging continually. And so in a discussion of turn based vs real time RPG's, I would consider BG's system to be real time.
The best example I think, would be Fallout Tactics. You can in fact, switch between 'turn based' and 'real time' in the options. And the 'real time' mode is, basically, the Baldur's Gate system.
