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Have profession: baker maxed out and carry around a masterwork rolling pin.
Catch off guard is the obvious must-have of feats, but you already knew that.
This was inspired by another thread in the forums.
Though a rough and crumble baker would be good, I'm looking for more of a thug. (bad pun I know)
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I've got a dwarf in a low-level game who carries around her own bar stool for emergency bar fights. :)
Really, there isn't a whole lot you need other than Catch-Off-Guard and/or Throw Anything and, when you hit BAB +8 Improvised Weapon Mastery. Better for a Strength build than a Dexterity build since I don't think you can finesse improvised weapons.
And since you'd be doing a strength build, consider Power Attack tree feats and two-handed fighting.
If you are going a Fighter route (so you have enough bonus feats) and can manage an Int of 13, consider taking Combat Expertise and Improved Disarm. Since Catch-off-Guard allows you to treat unarmed opponents as flat-footed, being able to disarm opponents before attacking them with your improvised weapon of choice would allow you to render them flat-footed, making it easier for you and your friends to hit them and make them unable to make AOOs. Since flat-footedness denies Dex, taking a few rogue levels for sneak attack damage may not be a bad idea for this kind of build.
Build might look something like this:
Good Strength. Decent Dex and/or Con. Int 13. Cha and Wis whereever you want it.
Lvl 1 Fighter: Take Caught-off-Guard and Combat Expertise
Lvl 2: Improved Disarm
Lvl 3: Power Attack
Lvl 4: Cleave
Lvl 5: Great Cleave
Lvl 6: Greater Disarm
Lvl 7: Whatever floats your boat (maybe Throw Anything or another combat maneuver feat)
Lvl 8: Improvised Weapon Mastery
If you add in rogue levels you would lower your BAB so you wouldn't be able to take Improvised Weapon mastery until level 9 or 10, or alternately could take rogue levels FOR level 9 or 10 after you came this far in fighter. If you went the rogue route I'd probably take 2 rogue levels, for 1 die of sneak attack, skills (Perception, Sense Motive, and Acrobatics would be good), evasion, and a rogue talent (maybe Combat Trick to keep building your fighting style).
Boating oar, steel flagging of ale, holy symbol mug if your fighting some demon or skeleton blugeoning.sock full of nails and stones?
I'd personally suggest an alchemist. You auto get Throw Anything, so all you have to do is pick up Catch Off-Guard. They can buff themselves with mutagens and extracts, including enlarge person, allow you to pick up and use larger objects (I think...). Also, if you go vanilla alchemist, you get bombs as back up range if nothing is useful at hand. It, IMHO, gives you a lot of options to play with alongside your improvised weapons.
As for other feats, I always found Dirty Trick maneuver to be fitting for someone who could be using a ukulele as a weapon. So perhaps Improved Dirty Trick as another feat. This also gives you other options if you want to occasionally play a support role.
For weapon of choice? Entirely up to you. Maybe you could talk your DM into allowing you to use an adamantine traveler's any-tool. So, if you get bored with using a shovel, you just transform it into a crowbar, or shears, or a saw...
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some useful traits and such for an improvised weapon build.
from the above link, i'd suggest the 'humble beginnings'[regional] (counts as catch off-guard for a small list of improv weapons--i suggest frying pan or spade myself) or 'rough and ready'[equipment] (ignore improv penalties for tools of your trade (requires at least 1 rank in craft or profession)--this one's rather flexible), and the 'surprise weapon' [combat] (+2 to attacks with improv weapons) traits.
humble+surprise nets you a +2 to improv attacks (i.e. all of them) and you don't need to spend feats on your style until 8 (for improv weapon mastery), all from level 1.
rough/ready+surprise lets you ignore the penalties (but still requires catch off-guard/throw anything if you want to get improv weapon mastery). unfortunately rough and ready's +1 to attack doesnt stack with surprise weapon's +2 since theyre both trait bonuses. still, +2 and no penalties on a hilariously flexible 'weapon' list for only 1 skill point investment is fantastic.
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Edit: a neat combo using rough and ready + surprise weapon is arrows (from say, the hunter/trapper profession), or cards (from say, being a fortune-teller).
arrows are great in that they're super cheap to make out of special materials (alch. silver, adamantine, etc.), can be bought/enchanted in bulk, are affected by weapon blanch(es), and have lots of peripheral effects they can do (durable arrows are a must, keep a few bludgeoning arrows for undead, etc.). and since youre using them improvised, you can stab folks with them instead of using them as a (thrown) ranged weapon.
cards are similar, and come in neat packets of 52 (take out the jokers and you can enchant the deck as a group of ranged ammo). ask your GM if you can later have them made out of metal or something so you don't run out of cards so quickly.
see if you can have your GM allow you to roll perception to find useful items nearby.
then go all sunder all the day and improved unarmed.
Goblin feral gnasher barbarian gives you improvised weapon mastery the quickest, at 5th.
Even on 15pts, you could go str 16-2, dex 12+4, con 14, int 10, wis 12, cha 7-2..
After or mixed with that, dip fighter for armor and feats..
Definitely nice to trait for a character-level cantrip for arcane strike, and surprise weapon for +2 to all attacks with your chosen weapon type..
Have fun crafting improbable and cruel devices for your improvised weapons, pick up splintering weapon to add bleed to your attacks..
I've actually made a Monk who utilized Improvised Weapons. He was the monastery cook and had the appropriate tools for it defaulting on a masterwork frying pan, Meat Cleaver, pepper shaker, pot lid, and other such kitchen items. Because of the Frying Pan's shape, I got permission to use it as an improvised shield and an improvised mace
Lvl 1 Weapon Focus (frying pan), Catch off Guard, Combat Expertise
Lvl 2 Combat Reflexes
Lvl 3 Improved Dirty Trick (Pepper Shaker to make them Sneeze and blind them)
Lvl 4 (no feat here)
Lvl 5 Power Attack
Lvl 6 Improved Trip
Lvl 7 Quick Dirty Trick
Lvl 8 (no feat here)
Lvl 9 Greater Trip
Lvl 10 Felling Smash
With this build, I generally would use a Full Attack action to catch them flatfooted for a dirty trick followed by power attacks with the frying pan that was both a weapon and adding to my AC and likely trip them in the process. One of my allies was a Rogue with a trip focused build and vicious stomp so we would wade into combat tripping everyone and dealing AoO twice to those he tripped and again to those I tripped. If I used my full first turn to Flurry trip/power attack multiple targets multiple targets, they were all flatfooted and usually all Tripped because of it.
Any full-BAB class with VMC MAGUS. By level 3 you can augment your weapon (it becomes magical). By level 7 you can add flaming/keen/whatever. That means by level 8 (or 9) you can have an improvised weapon with a 17-20 crit range.
Fighter obviously works well because losing feats doesn't matter as much when you have that many, but it doesn't have to be fighter.
Any full-BAB class with VMC MAGUS. By level 3 you can augment your weapon (it becomes magical). By level 7 you can add flaming/keen/whatever. That means by level 8 (or 9) you can have an improvised weapon with a 17-20 crit range.
Fighter obviously works well because losing feats doesn't matter as much when you have that many, but it doesn't have to be fighter.
that and a living grimoire would mean hitting them with the book and dealing a ton of damage(base damage increase as you level. adding bane from the changed inquisitor class and other bonus from the vms etc). note that this will also allow you to take feats like weapon focus(holynook) that other improvised weapon builds can't since they are not proficiant with it.
Blood of the Ancients has an interesting archetype for the brawler called the Hinyasi, which works well for improvised combat. They get Catch Off-Guard or Throw Anything as a bonus feat, deal their unarmed damage with any improvised weapon they wield, and treat all improvised weapons as if they are in the 'close' fighter weapon group, all at 1st level. At 4th they get a 'free' combat maneuver attack (from a small list) once per round when they hit with an improvised weapon.
It's a good start.
The Makeshift Scrapper Rogue archetype could help kickstart your build. It trades trapfinding for Catch off guard and Throw anything, then trap sense at third lvl for the ability to enhance an improvised weapon as a +1 weapon or shiel for a number of rounds equal to your Rogue lvl.
Once you get that, you can lvl in other class(es) depending on what you intend to do. I like the disarm build, especially if you are going up against a lot of humanoid opponents. Otherwise, you can fill the skillmonkey role easily and carry an adamantine crowbar to pry doors open and mithral/cold iron shovel to smash face when needed.
The Barbarian (breaker) gets nice bonuses on using improvised and broken weapons from level 3 and onward. You will need to find a way to infuse your impr.weapons with magic to overcome DR though.