When sitting at the table, if a Character has Crane Wing, The GM can simply tell the player what monster is attacking them with what attacks, one at a time in order, and tell them if it hits before rolling damage.
But in a PBP on the forums, GM's often roll all the baddies attcks all at onwce for the sake of time. So how should Playwrs pick what potential hit to block?
1. Pick an attack in advance, but what if that enemy doesn't attack?
2. Let the GM choose?
3. Pick what you likely would have blocked?
(2 and 3 have issues in that payers loosing contro of their character in 2, but 3 is open to abuse)
Has anyone found a better way? How have folks run it in the past?
What kind of abuse are you considering in the third scenario? The GM using the list to metagame the combat in order to see your crane wing not used or wasted? Or do you mean that 3 would occur after the combat so the player can just happen to choose the one that hit the hardest?
In my mind, the best would be the PC saying "I'd use my crane wing against creatures in this order of precedence" and list out the enemies. Naturally, if the GM chooses to abuse this, he could have lower precedence monsters attack first, but that's not really different than in normal table combat where the GM is trying to provoke the player to use up the ability.
It is sort of a combination of all three. Basically 1 and 3 but done beforehand.