what exactly does the spell misile of patience do? it seems pretty useless, info please...

It conjures up a ballista you must then fire manually at any monsters you want hit. Kinda like magic missile on steroids. There's plenty of screenshots of it in use at http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/Torment/Screenshots

Actually, if your character is low level, it'll cast a small ball which does 1-2 damage (useless), at higher levels you get a ballista, you can use it as ice shard or force ??? or any other spell which let's you continue throwing magic at the enemy. I've probably gotten some 20 shots at high levels, pretty good for a level one spell, no?

Oh, so that's why that silly description text! I've always wondered about that... I never saw the useless effect of it, so I was wondering why such a negative remark was written on the scroll.

Ah, hence the name missile of patience. I always thought that was because its effects only happened a long time after casting, making it useless. So I never tried it. Just sharing my ignorance, that's all :D