Today I learned that you can 'speak with animals' to the owlbear & it won't attack. You can even heal the owlbear's damage ... which does not get it to befriend you or improve her mood. However I -also- learned that if the random movement of the owlbear cub brings it too close to one of your guys that mommy will atttack. ...so will the cub.

I also learned that it is possible to accidentally heal a foe ... like, say, an OWLBEAR - if it is right next to your bard and the mouse click doesn't hit the target like I thought it had.

Despite that, my level 3 guys survived the fight & the owlbear didn't. It very much helped that I had Astarion doing bonus action hiding & sneak attacks with bow. It also helped that Lae'zel was in the party & took the brunt of mommy's attacks - AFTER she FLEW over and attacked my bard ...who was the furthest from her cub... & did 90% damage to him in round #1.