to be fair though it is an action game primarily and the combat is meant to be brutal as far as grey rat and cecily are concerned you just want to place them approperately in the room you start with its usually a trivial matter to blow through absolutely all the guards and re-enforcements with good positioning and as long as you can hit the enemies faster than cecily can they will usually strike you or grey rat you can also use the companion call while holding shift then select the individual person and then command them over with another shift companion call at the spot you want them to stand guard(you will know you selected them evidenced by a green arrow over their head) they will typically not budge more than 1 unit from their spot
oh yeah on rereading this time dialation? you mean acceleration? hold shift+ctrl and sneak(if thats not it its shift alt sneak) you will accelerate time by 2x if your system can play the game at 2x framerate and in theory if talking about your combat pause you can pause buffer technically and buffer inputs in as the menu is closing but only on hell difficulty and lower although i don't think the game will like you doing that to it it could cause a crash.