It depends on your subclass.  If you are a moon druid you can do both.  If not you can do the black bear.

there's a character in my party who is a druid who was stuck as a talking  brown bear

Quote from Webwraith >>

I grew up in area with bears, and while I think this is a good creature I see a common mistake made about bears.

Black bears climb trees, brown ones don't.

Larger brown bears weigh enough that climbing a tree isnt a very good strategy, they may push them over to get at food but not climb.  These bears, I think, should have a charge special that knocks targets prone after moving a set distance, or a dash bonus action.  If you review attack reports, or are familiar with bear behaviore you would know they are very fast, capable of sprints almost 40 mp/h (60 kmh/h) or 50 ft a second... and thats up hill, down hill across slopes or uneven terrain;  its really quite a scary sight.

 Another option I might do is change the bite to a second claw, and if both claws hit the same target they are knocked prone and take bludgeoning damage from the bear landing on them, or then a bite in stead of the bludgeoning damage.

The charge is a great idea. I was actually thinking of a grapple of some kind. If you watch bears hunt (or fight rivals), you often see them "wrestle" by using their paws & claws in a fairly dexterous manner -- exceeded only by felines or certain primates -- to hold onto their target or even pin it down before delivering bites.

brown bears are exccelent climbers if the tree is large enough

Why is charisma so low?

Don’t know if anyone is going to look at these, but can anyone let me know how exactly the bears damage works? Where it says “Hit: 8(1d8+4)” and “Hit: 11(2d6+4)” does this mean there’s a multiplication? (so 8 times (the dice roll plus 4) and 11 times (dice roll plus 4)) the numbers seemed a little high (max of 96 and 176 not including crits) so I was wondering if I was interpreting this wrong?

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Quote from Whambam >>

Based on this video, what kind of bear is best?

 There are many schools of thought

No. The 8 is the average of (1d8+4) and the 11 is the average of (2d6+4)

Looks like the brown bear has four D10 hit die with a constitution of +3.  If the moon Druid while shapes into a brown bear and takes a short rest, do they will their own hit die or the Bears hit die? 

Thank you, that makes a hell of a lot more sense considering the stupid high numbers

ber

If you are a moon druid you can shapeshift into this at 2nd level

Bear

One of my players is a druid and got a pet bear, in combat he told me that because his rations [that he had shared with his pet] contained mostly beans. I then asked him to roll a d20 he got a sixteen, the bear for no apparent reason tho the characters then proceeded to fart lethal gas at the thing they were fighting. suffice to say that "lethal Gas"  is now the most used attack in the campaign

who said anything about climbing trees?   do brown bears/grizzly bears not climb rocks in the mountains?    a climbing speed isnt just trees

Quote from Big_Stupidhead_Sometimes >>

Don’t know if anyone is going to look at these, but can anyone let me know how exactly the bears damage works? Where it says “Hit: 8(1d8+4)” and “Hit: 11(2d6+4)” does this mean there’s a multiplication? (so 8 times (the dice roll plus 4) and 11 times (dice roll plus 4)) the numbers seemed a little high (max of 96 and 176 not including crits) so I was wondering if I was interpreting this wrong?

 the n(dice) is the avg(dice rolled for attack)   so if you roll 2d6+4 10 times or so you should get an average damage of 11   so 11 = avg (2d6+4) = the actual roll count if you are rolling.   same with HP stats in the stat block.

Average = 8 (Actual Roll = 1d8+4)   Avg = 11 (actual roll = 2d6+4)

as a druid I love this to turn into, plus I get 2 turns plus a bonus actions

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Quote from Whambam >>

Based on this video, what kind of bear is best?

 Bears, Beats, Battlestar Galatica