Given the diversity of biomolecular environments and the relative simplicity of common potential functions it is perhaps surprising that biomolecular force fields have seen such broad and successful applications. However, the latest additive force fields feature a delicate balance of force field terms built up over decades, that continue to evolve to be usefully applied in new contexts. Where force fields have failed, parameter improvements have often focused on tweaks to backbone and sidechain torsional potentials, but have also included changes to the Lennard-Jones potential, pair-specific corrections to nonbonded interactions in defined environments, adaptations of parametrization protocols to develop implicitly polarized partial charges, and even application-specific water models. Nevertheless, fixed, atom-centered partial charges suffer from known deficiencies in their representation of intermolecular interactions. First, molecular electrostatic potentials, often the main target for fitting electrostatic parameters, are more accurately recreated if higher order, atom-centered multipoles are included in the fitted potential function. Second, additive models do not include an explicit representation of induction, and may therefore represent electrostatics poorly for molecular conformations, functional groups, or environments not well-validated in the parametrization process. This lack of transferability may pose challenges in the use of force fields for new, untested, applications.