When a creature has the Grab special ability, is the free Grapple attempt follow a successful Claw attack a separate attack for the purposes of on hit effects?
Example: Lets say I have Vine Strike cast which reads "any creature hit by your natural or unarmed strike must succeed at a Reflex save or be entangled". On a successful attack and following Grapple, would they have to make one or two Reflex saves?
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It's a combat manoeuvre, not an unarmed strike or natural weapon (if that's what the quoted sentence was intended to mean). edit: In fact, it seems the text would read in full "a natural strike", so no, it is not such a thing.
Exact wording may count for other effects. It is an action. It is not an attack or full-attack action, though it may be part of such. Most likely it's the action "Perform a combat manoeuvre" (in footnote 6, it's a separate action, not a melee attack). It involves an attack roll.
Yes, but it's a combat maneuver the requires a "to hit" roll using a natural or unarmed strike, hence my current confusion.
Yes, it counts as an attack. It is just a way to get grapple without using a standard action, and grapples count as attacks.
edit: I see I misread the question. It does not count as a natural attack or unarmed strikes. Grappling is a its own type of attack so it would not trigger anything that called out unarmed strikes or natural attacks.
The grab ability lets you perform a combat manoeuvre after a successful attack as a free action. The combat manoeuvre benefits from any bonuses to attack rolls, but the combat manoeuvre isn't a natural or unarmed attack. It's an attack roll that uses your BAB, Strength and any other relevant bonuses to perform a special action in place of a normal attack.
Putting it another way, let's take the Trip manoeuvre as an example. You perform an attack with a character wielding a flaming trip weapon. They use their attack to attempt a Trip combat manoeuvre with their flaming weapon. They add the weapon's enhancement bonus to the CMB of their trip attempt, since it affects the attack roll. However, even if they're successful, they don't roll the flaming damage of their weapon on the Trip. You don't get the benefit of any special properties of your attack unless it modifies your chance to hit with the attack roll or specifically modifies combat manoeuvres, such as a lucerne hammer adding +2 CMB to sunder medium or heavy armor.