unnaturally small scales, irrespective of the form of the interaction. It does not reveal *which* terms constitute the LO potential; only how those terms must be power-counted.

This behaviour has been long-recognised in pionless EFT ([EFT($\slashed{\pi}$)]{}) and its variants (like Halo-EFT and EFT of point-like interactions), where the scaling of operators and the $\beta$ functions of couplings between up to 3 nucleons are well-established [@Bedaque:2002mn; @Platter:2009gz]. For example, analytic results in well-controlled limits show one momentum-independent $3N$ operator at LO. Likewise, non-relativistic QED and QCD count the Coulomb potential as $Q^{-1}$ to allow its resummation.

The situation in [$\chi$EFT]{}for two and more nucleons is less obvious. Weinberg suggested to still count LECs as $Q^0$, and to apply the perturbative counting of momenta not to amplitudes but to the few-nucleon potential, which is then iterated to produce shallow bound states. How this translates into a PC of observables is under dispute. Further disagreement persists about the interpretation of approximate solutions (large off-shell momenta, semi-classical limit, etc.), and about unrelated numerical problems (deeply bound states etc.). In addition, a cutoff $\Lambda$ becomes numerically necessary. It is conceptually quite different from the breakdown scale ${\overline{\Lambda}_\text{EFT}}$, albeit the two symbols are similar. It cannot 