Have you considered using the 18F2431? It may be a little advanced for true beginners but it gives you the ability to control 4 half-bridges in hardware with independent duty cycles on each. This would allow for precision stepper motor control. It also has an advanced motion feedback module which allows for various forms of feedback including: quadrature encoders, velocity feedback, or A/D synchronization for other forms of feedback.
Besides all that, it has the standard 18F series features like a 2 channel CCP module, SPI, I2C, 8X8 multiplier, internal oscillator, and power managed modes.