It's not a significant buff in games going well and helps compensate a bit for games going badly, but to be honest it makes pans into a vaguely decent weapon, which it was never meant to be. Pans are meant to be discarded when taking wounds, not to kill zombies.
The main issue I have here is that it encourages consolidating pans on the same character in the early game - there is no reason not to if you have an action handy in the first turn (assuming you follow the rules and give everyone something), and that changes game flow every game.