Is option 2 really "punishing"? If I understand correctly - they attempt to do something that has no chance to succeed. To me, the action of that attempt can be reflected in a die roll.
This
is situational. If there's a shear wall and someone wants to climb I'll just be sure that I'm clear: this is a shear wall, you won't be able to climb it. Maybe they thought they could if their athletics score is high enough or maybe I just forgot they have slippers of spider climbing.
Oh, and the text usually quoted to justify the "no roll" theory seems to cherry pick:
Using Ability Scores
When a player wants to do something, it’s often appropriate to let the attempt succeed without a roll or a reference to the character’s ability scores. For example, a character doesn’t normally need to make a Dexterity check to walk across an empty room or a Charisma check to order a mug of ale. Only call for a roll if there is a meaningful consequence for failure.
When deciding whether to use a roll, ask yourself two questions:
- Is a task so easy and so free of conflict and stress that there should be no chance of failure?
- Is a task so inappropriate or impossible — such as hitting the moon with an arrow — that it can’t work?
The stuff I bolded has been ignored by some people when making the case of don't ask for a roll. In the first case it's obvious there's no chance of failure because it's so simple, in the latter it's obvious there's no way it could possibly succeed.
That, to me, is different from making an attempt at something you may think is possible such as in this case searching a room. The
DM knows there's no reason for the roll but in cases where the
players don't know then the roll just reflects the effort taken.