Replaying BG1 and 2 now and i'm pretty sure the combat in PoE, 1 at least, is a direct evolution of that. Maybe a bit too reliant on choke points on higher difficulties, but even then it's not that the originals/EE don't have them, it's just that they're not well implemented.
It is, except they could not use D&D, invented their own rules and those rules are a convoluted mess. I don't know what makes D&D rules special, but they are. I couldn't even finish the 2nd one in turn based mode and I absolutely prefer that one to active pause. In any case, I am super excited about what Larian is doing. A bit of polish and it will be a game with some huge replay value.
