Classes in this category are considered "special" or "unique" classes (Japanese:特殊職special job) inFire Emblem: Shadow Dragon,New Mystery of the Emblem,Awakening,Fates, orThree Houses. Outside ofThree Houses, which explicitly defines classes as such, this means they fill these criteria:

• They have a higherlevel cap than the usual 20. InShadow Dragon,New Mystery of the Emblem, andAwakening they have a level cap of 30. InFates andEngage they have a level cap of 40.
• They cannotclass change to anadvanced class. InAwakening,Fates, andEngage they are only capable ofreclassing. InShadow Dragon andNew Mystery of the Emblem they are incapable of changing class at all.
• They gainexperience at the same rate as abase class.
• Depending on the individual class, their stat caps may resemble those of either base or advanced classes; the majority do the latter, while theVillager does the former.

Someenemy-exclusive classes fit the level and cap criteria, but owing to their irrelevance to class-changing/reclassing systems they are not necessarily classified as special classes.

In the English localization ofThree Houses, "special" (Japanese:特級special tier) is used the name of the tier assigned to DLC classes, distinct from the previous type of special class, which is known as "unique" in the localization ofThree Houses.