ToEE combat (turn based) was fun but story was meh.

Nope. It's turn-based. Here's a gameplay vid.

TBS games are murder on the working memory. I've rarely gotten into them and I find that before too long that I'm burning turns for resources because I can't keep track of everything that's going on.

At least with real time games, I don't have so much that's out of sight and out of mind.

Well, it begins as all great party-based RPGs do: your party meets in a tavern and they decide to head off to an adventure. I haven't played the game, but from what I heard, you start by trying to make yourself known in the world (gain reputation) and the main quest is revealed as you explore the gameworld. However, Darklands is rather uncommitted to its story, as you can continue after you've finished it and you're never actually forced to go down that path it at all. Your party also ages, so it may happen that you will need to replace one or more members with new ones.

I've seen Dragon Age: Ultimate Edition really cheap during sales. It's not as good as BG2, but I enjoyed it. It certainly has some game mechanics in common with BG, so you might like it.

It's variable speed: = pause |> slow > normal >> fast forward

UFO Afterlight is surprisingly portable, I've carried the same installation across 3 computers and 4/5 Windows installs over the years and haven't had issues. One day I'll finish the campaign if I can figure out how to get out of the situation I got stuck in :P

It's completely non-linear. Your main goal is to make your rag-tag group of "mercenaries" into a formidable force in any of the myriad situations that can arise. You get into dangerous spots because you need money, and when said money is acquired, it is promptly spent on gear, provisions, studies and transport, so you can get even more money and a cycle is formed. Because of the game mechanics, all the events feel very real and any one of them can become game ending very quickly. For instance, a gravely wounded party member can spend the better part of a month healing in the early stages of the game because you don't yet have a competent healer in your party. And because he has to rest, you can't do anything to make (any meaningfull) money, and so it slowly starts to drain from your strongbox. Well, at least that's true if you stay at an inn in a town. If you wish to rough it in the wilderness, you can heal him for free... if the wolves, demons, peasants, knights, taxmen, alchemists, pilgrims, witches, bandits, mad priests, alchemic experiments, gnomes.... etc don't get you.

No, seriously, you'll either quit after half an hour, or tough on through it and eventually start to really enjoy it.

How about Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader? Has anyone played it?

I'm fairly sure the combat was real-time. All in all, it's not very good.

Other than the aforementioned Darklands, the only real-time w/ pause game I can think of is Ogre Battle and Ogre Battle 64 but that's strategy-RPG, not tactical.

In my experience, the closest precursor to Baldur's Gate is actually an old DOS RPG called Challenge of the Five Realms, but it has turn-based combat.

Planescape: Torment
Dragon Age: Origins
Divine Divinity
Arcanum

It's real-time and pretty hectic; expect lots of fast clicking.

Surprised no one has mentioned these, but if you liked Fallout Tactics you should definitely play the first two Fallouts themselves!

Arcanum is great, the setting is steampunk and the system underneath it is pretty much Fallout's (APs, turn-based, lots of text and lots of variables depending on character stats and actions). It's very long, and you will need all sorts of easy-to-install community patches to iron out the numerous bugs it has, but once it's all patched up it's an amazing game. I guess it's kind of the Troika syndrome, but fortunately lots of people have patched these games up thoroughly.