D&D 5E (2014) Is Point Buy Balanced?

[Lanefan]

Realistically, day-to-day living should cause XP loss, proportional to the amount of total earned XP, representing the natural erosion of the edge life-or-death experiences give.

Training and practice can ameliorate this decline, but not arrest it.

Agreed, and as in my eyes this has always been a rather big hole in the game system, a year or two back I finally got around to designing a system to handle exactly this.

It's here if you're interested:

Blue Book - Part 9 - Development

 

[ECMO3]

That 20 strength barbarian will be doing almost double damage on average

It is possible the 20 strength Barbarian does double the damage of the 14 strength Barbarian during a session, it is also possible the 20 Strength Barbarian does less damage than the 14 Strength Barbarian during a session and it is possible they will be within 25% of one another over the course of a session or be "balanced" within this tolerance despite the difference in ability scores.

More importantly this is still all true even in they both have a 20 strength ... or if they both have a 14 strength.

 

[AlViking]

It is possible the 20 strength Barbarian does double the damage of the 14 strength Barbarian during a session, it is also possible the 20 Strength Barbarian does less damage than the 14 Strength Barbarian during a session and it is possible they will be within 25% of one another over the course of a session or be "balanced" within this tolerance despite the difference in ability scores.

More importantly this is still all true even in they both have a 20 strength ... or if they both have a 14 strength.

Averages matter. Once-in-a-blue moon doesn't to me.