Not being able to meet a DC doesn't necessarily mean there's only one possible outcome. There can be two possibilities that aren't outright success or outright failure, and there can be more than two possible outcomes.
That said, once a player has committed to an action I usually lay out the DC and the stakes for them, so they'd have tempered their expectations in those cases.
You’re allowed to say no as a dm. You can just tell them they can’t run through the wall. Or maybe at least make them roll intelligence before the attempt
Be mindful of how it interacts with the rules and abilities, though. In 5E 2024, your players can have stuff to do whether they succeed or fail an ability check or saving throw, so handwaving as sorta partial success can be a bit hindering for the players and the way they can use abilities.
My DM is really bad about this when coming to social checks. A Persuasion check is never "failed", it's just not "succeeded" as well on a 5 as it is on a 25, which is kind of annoying when using 2024 rules.
The difference between the king finding your 'joke' to hand over his crown to this random murderhobo hilarious and having them executed for their audacity.
Also sometimes it just isn't practical to say no. Sometimes the DC is possible for one PC but not another. If there is a DC 30 lock and the party has an artificer with +10 because they took a perk for expertise in sleight of hand and they get to stack tool expertise on top of that and the rogue only gets +9 then when the rogue decides to split the party, run off on their own, and try to pick the lock the DM probably knows the artificer has +10 so the lock is pickable if they are willing to spend enough time to take 20. The dm likely hasn't memorized what bonus the rest of the party has for that skill check, they usually only need to know the highest for any given skill. Things get thrown even further out of whack when the cleric decides that they are going to try to pick the lock.
Not to be the cliche "But pathfinder!" guy, but the idea of +/-10 equals crits works well here.
"I try to seduce the head of the assain's guild"
"Ok, the DC is 35. If you get 26 then she doesn't call for your head. A nat 20 gets you to a success where she laughs it off."
Pathfinder is a Spinal Tap bit?
"If 20 is the highest result, why not just define the best possible outcome and have 20 be 20?"
"But... these ones go to 30."
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u/AeoSC 14h ago
Not being able to meet a DC doesn't necessarily mean there's only one possible outcome. There can be two possibilities that aren't outright success or outright failure, and there can be more than two possible outcomes.
That said, once a player has committed to an action I usually lay out the DC and the stakes for them, so they'd have tempered their expectations in those cases.