We propose a system of coupled, real-valued, effective Langevin equations for the nonequilibrium phase transition exhibited by the pair contact process with diffusion (and similar triplet and quadruplet, n-uplet, processes). A combination of analytical and numerical results demonstrate that these equations account for all known phenomenology in all physical dimensions, including estimates of critical exponents in agreement with those reported for the best-behaved microscopic models. We show in particular that the upper critical dimension of these n-uplet transitions is 4/n, and 4/n-1 for their anisotropic (biased) versions.