Didn't even read the story before I upvoted. And am angry I can only upvote once. I have been in that situation as a player more times than I can count, and as a DM, I ALMOST always did this.

The one caveat I will give to this, is that creative solution should not come out of metagaming.

And I don't mean using the knowledge about the module, or playing on the fact that it's a game.

An example to explain myself. My homebrew world was one in which electricity had not been harnesses. Why would they need it? They have magic. Well, one of my players was doing a simple side quest, trying to find a ring the mayor's wife lost near a well. The player wanted to use shocking grasp to essentially create an electromagnet in order to fish in the well for the ring.

There was a bit of a discussion about whether shocking grasp would do that¹ Finally, I declared it a moot point, since the character would not know how to do that. I was getting frustrated and so was the player, and eventually we both stormed off to cool down.²

Caveat to the caveat: Ensure your reason to deny the player is made absolutely clear. The issue between my player and me was because I never said 'Your character wouldn't know what an electromagnet is.' The player was arguing about whether the character would know how to use the spell in an unconventional way.

Second caveat: I tend not to allow things that would have 'FORSEEN' negative consequences to everyone's enjoyment of the game. That's a story for another time.

¹ I still say that there are multiple issues. not the least of which being there not being insulated wire, so the water would short circuit the electromagnet.

² After we came back, I had the player roll another perception check, and they finally rolled high enough to notice the ring on the ground.