Flamethrower Endowment in Nightstalkers...um, wth?

So...I'm not entirely convinced that the Logehamarr Personal Flamethrower is five dots worth of useful.

The benefit of this endowment, apart from statistically being exactly like a flamethrower, is that it sends vampires into an automatic fear frenzy upon seeing it...which a mundane flamethrower stands good odds of doing anyway. The vampire tries to escape as fast as its able, which can be pretty damn fast.

The hiccup here is that a flamethrower doesn't have a particularly long range that's accurate.

And I think it's safe to assume that any vampire with a lick of sense is NOT going to stick around long enough for a hunter to actually employ the primed and ready flamethrower.

I think the weapon is an okay idea; just not the kind I'd spend five merit dots on in play. Is there anyone here who has found it to be worth the price of admission? Am I completely wrong in my assessment?

A lot of it, in my view, depends on the particular type of Leech you're facing. Sending a vampire into fear frenzy may not be good against a physically capable Daeva, due to their inherent strength and speed, but Frenzy does deny it the ability to use Majesty. Also, you must remember that being in Frenzy is mindless terror, so a group of Bloodrags can't use tactical thinking against hunters, not to mention it allows the Task Force to employ more sophisticated traps. In terms of tactics, the LPF is a shock and awe weapon, not a normal longarm, it creates panic and confusion, and it denies the naturally agressiveness that makes Vamps so dangerous.

I would say it should be 3 or towards 4

Ryaca:

Am I completely wrong in my assessment?

  Not at all.

I think that the mundane flamethrower aspect was factored into the dot assignment for the Logehamarr.  Most PCs are not going to have access to mundane, military-grade flamethrowers.  The merit allows a PC to get his or her hands on one with neither the expenditure of resources nor some plausible means of acquisition.

So that's my guess for why the cost is what it is.  As for whether or not it's worth it?  I would say yes, but I only say that after much hesitation.  It is in some circumstances more easily used than the Victim Detonated Sun Bomb, and it is always more surefire.  If the target is cornered, then the target will probably have to run past the hunter to escape.  Even a vampire with Resolve and Composure each 10 will always succumb to it, so it is extremely useful versus elders who may have supernaturally high attributes.  A single shot can cause panic in even a crowd of vampires at Elysium, and in the chaos not only can the area be searched and then burned (to deny its future use to the enemy), but a few vampires are bound to be easy pickings for the enemy.  Finally, some vampiric disciplines are absolutely vicious offensively.  For example, Obfuscate 3 allows the following sequence (if the vampire wins higher initiative than any hunters, which with some merits or repeated use of Celerity is fairly safe to assume):

Vampire Turn 1:  Vampire disappears.
Hunter Turn 1:  Hunter has no target to attack.
Vampire Turn 2:  Vampire delays action until end of round.
Hunter Turn 2:  Hunter has no target to attack.
Vampire Turn 2 at end of round:  Vampire attacks, revealing itself.
Sequence repeats.

Even if the Hunter uses prepared actions to attack the vampire as soon as it is revealed, the hunter might be thrown off by the vampire further varying tactics (the vampire waits for one or two rounds, and probably takes the time to heal, the vampire sometimes attacks melee and sometimes ranged, so that the hunter must use ranged to reliably attack but the vampire's defense will apply versus the melee).  Put simply, a single vampire might kill two or three hunters at once this way.  Turning into mist is a more costly way to achieve the same effect when performed reflexively (with the appropriate devotion).  Majesty 5 can allow a vampire to fight one target in a group at a time and make the first attack each time.

Why do I bring this up?  Because the Logehamarr can drive these creatures off.  You don't have to even aim at it.  Just one shot and it flees.  The same use can also be used to reveal a vampire using Blush of Life and spending willpower to appear normal in mirrors and cameras.  Spray a shot, and if a mad fear grips the target then you have yourself a vampire, else human or some other ENE.